St John's has moved from its Market Street location to St Nicholas Arcades, and in its first week has enjoyed great success.
Laura Stanbridge, head of retail for St John's Shops, said: "This is an exciting opportunity for St John's, it gives us the opportunity to take learning from our other shops, whilst trying new approaches.
"We often consider different locations to maximise our sales, we consider important factors e.g. customer footfall, window display space, good accessibility e.g. lifts and nearby parking etc.
"The new shop in St Nic's has all of this and popular shops nearby such as Iceland, Next and Boots and more. It also gives St John's Shops customers a 'covered shopping' experience in Lancaster. We know this works well with our two Morecambe shops, so it's an opportunity to try it in Lancaster!
"Our aim is to give our different shoppers what they need so our shops have different personalities and offerings to suit different customer needs, e.g. our Kingsway shop is perfect for people who like a browse as part of the Lidl shopping trip, and Caton Road works well for shoppers who don't always go into the city centre.
"Slyne Road furniture shop is nice and spacious for people to see furniture laid out and we all know that savvy bargain hunters love the £1 Penny Street shop as part of their city centre visit!
"Ultimately our role in the shops is to raise funds to support patients and families, so when an opportunity arises it feels right to try something different.
"Only 25% of St John's funding comes from the NHS, 75% is from our amazing community, including people who buy from our charity shops. To everyone who donates and shops with us – thank you!"
Perusing charity shops to buy pre-loved items is becoming more popular and is a sustainable way of shopping – the fashion industry is the fourth biggest carbon emission producing industry in the world. It's a bigger contributor to climate change than aviation and other transport industries.
Therefore shopping in charity shops such as St John's helps you reduce your carbon footprint as you are saving goods from landfill, you still have something that's 'new to you' and you are supporting your local hospice.
St John's Hospice runs 10 shops. There are four furniture shops in the Lancaster, Morecambe, Garstang and Kendal areas, with clothes, books and more in six additional shops. The shops are mainly staffed by kind volunteers whose time directly supports patient and family care in your local area.
They are always in need of good quality items to sell. The general rule of thumb when considering whether to donate to St John's is if you wouldn't give it to a friend or relative, then it’s probably something they wouldn't be able to resell.
