According to Dalrymple in the Salisbury Review, only 16 percent of the British Red Cross’s charity shop revenue actually ends up with the Red Cross, which then must pay its own expenses, of course.
…the question arises how the British Red Cross can raise so little money from its retail operations. After all, it receives most of its goods and a large part of its labour free of charge, and it pays reduced local taxes (a policy that should, of course, cease forthwith). It is a miracle of disorganisation, at least equal to anything seen in the National Health Service: I hesitate to call it by a name less morally neutral than disorganisation.