Finance | Gareth Jones | 25 Aug 2009

Charity shops have defied the recession and increased their profits by 4.1 per cent in the past year. While the gross income of the 5,035 charity shops in the sample fell by 3.1 per cent to £526.1m, their costs fell even further, by 4.9 per cent to £414.6m, leaving a collective profit of £111.5m.


Charity shops have now increased their profits for four years running, and in eight of the last 11.