Do Charity Bookshops Drive Out Other Second-Hand Bookshops?

Some years ago I started investigating the common belief among book-collectors that there are fewer second-hand bookshops in the UK than there used to be. As a matter of stark statistical fact, this is simply not the case.

Of course, many people will have the subjective impression that it is true, based on their own, partial, experience. They will know of bookshops that have closed, and towns or cities that had several but now have none. No-one is doubting such personal impressions.

But they are not the whole picture. The broad profile I have established, using contemporary book trade and book-collecting directories, is that there were 523 second-hand bookshops in the UK in 1955, about 600 in 1966, about 750 in 1973, about 900 in 1984 and in 1995, about 950 in 1999, and 1,140 in 2014. There are 1,282 now, in April 2025. At no point does this profile show a decrease. Even if we exclude charity bookshops, the total of all other bookshops has been stable, at about 900+, for over forty years.

Could there have been a temporary dip in between any of these periods? Possibly, but I have not seen any evidence of that, and it could only have been small and of short duration given the overall upward trend (*see note).

The main reasons given for the supposed decrease are the internet, high street rents and charity bookshops. Again, no doubt each of these has had an impact. But bricks-and-mortar booksellers can sell via the internet too, and booksellers can migrate to lower rent areas. Indeed, there is some evidence of this: there are fewer city centre bookshops and more in smaller, less expensive towns.

But what about charity bookshops? The argument here is that these get their stock and most of their staff for free, and also enjoy tax and business rate concessions. They therefore provide, the argument goes, unfair competition to privately-owned bookshops. In a recent (2 April) article, ‘The problem with Oxfam Books’, for The Spectator, Alexander Larman confidently states: ‘If you’re ever wondering why many medium-sized, even large, towns and cities in Britain don’t have second-hand bookshops any longer, the simple answer is that the Oxfam bookshops have driven them out of business.’

In fact, over 700 places in Britain do still have a second-hand bookshop, but, that aside, the argument sounds plausible, and I can think of an apparent anecdotal example. York has two Oxfam Bookshops and in recent years has lost at least six other bookshops. But in each case Oxfam was not directly cited as the cause of closure. The reasons included retirement, death, relocation, redevelopment, the economic climate, the pandemic.

What does the evidence show? The major introduction of full-scale charity bookshops in the UK began around 2000. Oxfam had opened sixty by 2003, fifteen more were announced in 2004, and by 2009 it had 130. Other charities followed, though on a much smaller scale.

The Book Guide, the online listing of second-hand bookshops, gave in August 2017 a figure for the total number of charity bookshops it recorded: 287.

However, it also gave an overall number for all bookshops: 1,187. This means that 930 in its list were not run by charities. This would include, as with all the other overall figures I’ve cited, not only “traditional” bookshops but also private bookrooms open by appointment, and antiques centres with significant book stocks, and even a few well-established market stalls.

It will be seen that the rise of charity bookshops to getting on for 300 had not on the face of it affected the number of other bookshops. There were 900+ of these in the late Nineties and still 900+ in 2017 alongside the charity bookshops. The theory that charity bookshops drove out other bookshops is not borne out by the figures in this period.

But what about the period since 2017? Well, there was not much change in the two or three following years, certainly, since The Book Guide showed broadly similar figures for those. But since then? From 2020 to now?

Charity bookshops have continued to increase. The Book Guide now lists about 150 Oxfam Bookshops, together with a further 40 of its general shops with a book room or significant stock. It also lists 11 for Amnesty, 7 for the Red Cross, 6 for Age UK, and 17 named as ‘Community Bookshops’ (there are more of these, with a variety of names). There are many others for national or local good causes.

Furthermore, The National Trust began opening second-hand bookshops at its properties in circa 2010 and in April 2025 reported on its website that it had “more than 240”. However, some of these are very small and so do not meet the Guide’s criteria, and most may only be visited after paying an admission charge to the property: The Book Guide largely omits these and so they are additional to its overall totals.

If the theory that charity bookshops drive out traditional bookshops were true, we would expect to see this major expansion lead to a clear reduction in the latter. Has it? Have other bookshops declined since 2020 as the charity bookshop sector expanded?

Again, there is no clear evidence of this. I haven’t surveyed every single bookshop in The Book Guide but I have twice carried out sampling to estimate the number of charity and community bookshops. Both times this suggested they comprise about 27% of the total. If this is broadly correct, it implies there are still about 935 other bookshops: a very similar figure to The Book Guide’s 2017 survey. The figures do not support the supposed decline in the number of conventional bookshops as charity bookshops have increased.

This analysis does not mean of course that there is no instance where a charity bookshop has had a role in influencing the closure of a private bookshop. There may well be examples, although one I saw confidently cited recently was rather refuted by the fact that the bookshop in question had not in fact closed, and is indeed still open now. But my analysis does show, I hope, that it cannot be generally or largely true.

I am well aware that this statistical evidence will not stop the story some booksellers and book-collectors (and journalists) like to tell. So, since they prefer anecdote, I’ll share one of mine. I once visited a small South Wales town where a second (privately run) second-hand bookshop had just opened. I asked the owner of the original one if this bothered him. Oh no, he said, it was good for business: more bookshops attract more visitors. The proof of that is in another Welsh town, thriving Hay-on-Wye, which has around 17 bookshops, all apparently doing well – and, incidentally, a charity bookshop too.

(Mark Valentine)

* Additional note. There is some evidence of a dip between 2019 and 2021, when The Book Guide resumed after a hiatus, and of a further dip in 2022. But this is complicated by the Guide getting back up to speed with data, and the 2020-21 pandemic lockdowns, when closures may have accelerated and visits to bookshops were curtailed. Within 18 months, once the book trade (and The Book Guide) resumed normal business, numbers rose again.to well beyond 2018 levels.