What is the Oxfam Online Shop?

And just like when you shop in our Oxfam high street shops, the income raised through our Online Shop all goes towards a fairer world. Here's your guide to the Oxfam Online Shop...

The donations come from all over the country. Most likely, they’re items that haven’t managed to find a new home at their local Oxfam shop. And because we have to regularly make way for fresh donations, unsold items are sent on to our Batley recycling centre and Online Shop. There they have a second chance at selling to a worldwide audience.

When items are put into the donation banks (for example, at your local supermarket), those items are sometimes brought directly to Batley. And even fashion retailers send their excess stock here for us to sell! They are all put in the entrance of the recycling centre and sorted on huge conveyor belts to decide what’s best to do with the items.

From sorting to rail –Oxfam experts work out whether items are right for Oxfam’s Online Shop. If the items aren’t right for the online shop customer, they could be saved to go to festivals in the summer with our Festival Shop team. Or sent out to a different Oxfam high street shop better suited to selling that item. If the item can’t be resold, it gets recycled and turned into things like mattress filler.

This recycling centre alone saves 12,000 tonnes of textiles from going to landfill every year. This is in addition to the 2000 tonnes of donated clothing sold through the shops.

This is where the dedicated team of volunteers start the process by giving each piece a little bit of TLC. We steam, iron and even repair garments on-site. Then it’s on to a photography booth to take fabulous photos of them for the website. Finally, pieces are researched, described, and priced before going live and available to buy.

Our items are dispatched from different locations. Depending on whether you order from our Donated items, Sourced by Oxfam, or Oxfam Unwrapped, your items might come from different dispatch locations.

Second-hand items are also usually dispatched by the shop where they were donated and listed on the online shop, so second-hand items may also come from varying locations.

This makes the shipping process a bit different than it would be with other retailers, as items can arrive separately and not in one package.

The Oxfam Online Shop has extensive womenswear, menswear and accessories sections. As well as hundreds of designer and vintage items, including vintage dresses.

As with a high street shop, searching for second-hand gems online can take patience, skill, and a willingness to look at plenty of things that aren’t your style. We encourage to discover rather than search for specific items, and you’ll surprised at what gems you find in the way.

Here are the top 3 tips in finding those gems:

Filtering

Whether by size, brand, price or more. You can select multiple by clicking on, for example “Size14”, and then also choosing “Size 16” once the initial results have loaded. It will add your filters together.

Using the search bar

When you have a particular item or brand in mind, searching for it will pull up every result relevant to that term. It might take a minute to get those results up, but you can then browse a big range of the type of thing you’re looking for.

Browsing “view all” at the bottom of each category

This will show you all the latest listings, regardless of size, brand etc. It means you can see a huge range of new items on the shop and spot things that might be in sizes you wouldn’t typically shop. Another great tip is to do this for both women’s and men’s. Items like trainers, jumpers and bags can sometimes be listed in one or the other so you might find something you love in an unexpected place!

What next?

Now that you're ready, shop on the Oxfam Online Shop and follow @OxfamOnlineShop and @OxfamOnlineBatley on Instagram for all the latest treasures!