What I learned from last night’s TV: UK businesses still don’t get the web

You get insight in the weirdest of places.

I found myself watching Mary Queen of Charity Shops last night. The premise is simple: A pushy woman comes in and overhauls a charity shop, clears out the tat, gives the shop a facelift, lo’ and behold it makes more money. Hurrah.

And while I don’t doubt the eponymous Mary knows a thing or two about brands, fashion and window dressing, it was a remarkable display of analogue thinking in 2009.

I found myself shouting “use eBay” at the TV.

When not encouraging old ladies to sell second-hand vibrators (left), Mary’s bugbear appears to be the inability of the old ladies to charge more than £2.50 for any item in the store, irrespective of brand or condition. There was much talk about being able to sell a red sweater for £20 because it was “this season” and cashmere.

“Our customers won’t pay that”, came the answer.

But people on eBay will. Mary handed over a £700 Mulberry handbag, hoping her newly motivated team could get £40 or so for it. On eBay, I’m told, they could have made a couple of hundred.

Surely web-savvy students or silver surfers could be enlisted to run eBay accounts on behalf of charities. Other volunteers could be put to use packaging and ferrying items to the post office. Other volunteers meanwhile could spend their time on inventory recruitment drives and better stock control. Furthermore, eBay could probably score some PR points by running education sessions for charity shops workers.

The irony here is the show is clearly about ‘transformation’ but it’s outlook and tactics are stuck in the early 90s.

“Let’s do up the store”, whether literally or as metaphor for the other superficial changes businesses make, now pales in effectiveness to “let’s have a meaningful online strategy”.