Is it right to Moan about Charity shop prices.

biscit

Pollycat wrote: »

I think some charity shops have lost the plot on pricing, especially 'cheap' stuff from Primark and books.

I donate all my unwanted items to our local hospice shop.
They are very reasonable with pricing - books are 25p each or 5 for £1.

I've seen budget brand (Primark/Matalan etc) stuff on sale for more than new price and always put it down to well off old dears who never shop in these places and don't understand how cheaply you can buy stuff these days. While I find it mildly irritating,
I can't bring myself to look at it as dishonesty or taking advantage of people.

Pollycat

biscit wrote: »

I've seen budget brand (Primark/Matalan etc) stuff on sale for more than new price and always put it down to well off old dears who never shop in these places and don't understand how cheaply you can buy stuff these days. While I find it mildly irritating,
I can't bring myself to look at it as dishonesty or taking advantage of people.

I don't think I did say it was dishonest or taking advantage of people.

All I said was 'they've lost the plot' or to put it another way, their prices are set too high for what they are selling based on what items can be bought for new.

£1.99 for a book when you can buy 3 for £5 in The Works is just not sensible - but not dishonest and not taking advantage.
After all, nobody is forced to buy.

System

Pollycat wrote: »

I don't think I did say it was dishonest or taking advantage of people.

All I said was 'they've lost the plot' or to put it another way, their prices are set too high for what they are selling based on what items can be bought for new.

£1.99 for a book when you can buy 3 for £5 in The Works is just not sensible - but not dishonest and not taking advantage.
After all, nobody is forced to buy.

Yes but unless its the same book comparing it with works is unfair. The choice on offer in works is usually very limited. I think £2 for a second hand book is a fair price.

dontone

cattie wrote: »

BHF is one charity shop I refuse to go into in my high st as I've always found their pricing absolutely ott. They also have a furniture shop in Sidcup and while, very occasionally, you'll see a piece of reasonably priced furniture, most of it is up for silly money and every now and again they will have a sale 25% day off of sofas and suites as they are just not shifting the stock to make way for new donations. As far as electrical items go, they seem to pluck figures out of the air, battered looking washing machines with yellowing plastic up for £180 & the fridge freezers look as if they have had 20 rounds with a heavyweight and lost.

I agree. the one in Barnsley seems to be taking the mick with their prices. I walked past the other day, and they wanted £20 for a kettle :eek: that looked like Mrs Brown had had hold of it. Their other shop seems to pluck prices out of the air too. There was a cute little dog ornament that I found once that they wanted £8 for :eek: and the fella behind the counter was pushing me to buy it. I told him that although they were a charity, I certainly wasn't!!! BTW apparently they don't price the things themselves, I evesdropped once and one of the helpers told an old lady that they hire someone to come in appraise stuff.

Pollycat

goater78 wrote: »

Yes but unless its the same book comparing it with works is unfair. The choice on offer in works is usually very limited. I think £2 for a second hand book is a fair price.

Then we have to agree to disagree.

As I said in one of my earlier posts, some charity shops sell books (in decent condition) for 25p each or 50p.

Another poster says her local CS sells books at £1 for 8.

I usually buy them to take on holidays (I use my local library at other times) and leave them in resort so there's no way I'm paying £1.99 for a book.

I think the point is that in towns where there are lots of charity shops (we have at least 12), people will tend to use the ones that have stuff priced reasonably. Those shops will have a higher turnover of stock as they are shifting it quicker so people will go into them more often instead of the shops that have the same items priced highly for months on end.

System

A new book these days is £6:99-7:99 usually. I think it's ridiculous to think the resale value of that product is 1/8th of a quid!

shaun_from_Africa

goater78 wrote: »

A new book these days is £6:99-7:99 usually. I think it's ridiculous to think the resale value of that product is 1/8th of a quid!

Don't forget that the initial sale price of £6.99 to £7.99 will have to cover many things:
The printing cost
The delivery cost
The wholesalers profit
The retailers profit
The authors royality
Advertising costs
and possibly other costs as well.

When a book is resold, there are very few expenses that need to be covered by the selling price.

marywooyeah

I donate to charity by direct debit each month (£30 across a few charities) which is a lot for a student, and whenver I have a clear out we donate to local shops.

About 2 weeks ago me and my son took a big bag of videos, another bin liner full of toys and kids clothes and took them to the local Age Concern. We knocked on the back door and a woman came out, looked at our things and when my son passed her a video she said "oh no we don't take those" and he looked a bit rejected, then she said "what else have you got?" so when I said we had toys/clothes she turned her nose up and said "oh ok well thanks" as if she was doing us a favour taking them.

As we reversed out of the car park, having put all the videos back in the car, we saw her come out of the back door and sling our donations bag into an industrial bin! She even looked over at us while she was walking back into the shop!

charity shops these days seem to have ideas above their station - their purpose is to take in resaleable donations to raise money for charity. Charging stupid amounts of money for things you can buy cheaper brand new isn't going to raise money for their cause, nor is throwing away good quality items that could have gone to a good home.

System

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Don't forget that the initial sale price of £6.99 to £7.99 will have to cover many things:
The printing cost
The delivery cost
The wholesalers profit
The retailers profit
The authors royality
Advertising costs
and possibly other costs as well.

When a book is resold, there are very few expenses that need to be covered by the selling price.

But that's true for any product you sell second hand. You sell any product second hand you don't have to pay any production costs.

I have personally often bought second hand books for £2 and would never think that was overly expensive. If anything it's cheap!

Pollycat

goater78 wrote: »

A new book these days is £6:99-7:99 usually. I think it's ridiculous to think the resale value of that product is 1/8th of a quid!

I'm not the one pricing them up though.
I'm just repeating what another poster wrote earlier.
So some charity shops do think it's not ridiculous to charge that amount.

goater78 wrote: »

But that's true for any product you sell second hand. You sell any product second hand you don't have to pay any production costs.

I have personally often bought second hand books for £2 and would never think that was overly expensive. If anything it's cheap!

But as you've pointed out, you don't go into charity shops so are you really qualified to judge what's cheap and what's not?
£2 might not be expensive in your world but it certainly is for a lot of posters on this thread who do frequent charity shops.

goater78 wrote: »

I don't use these sort of stores myself

Most of us posting on here are people who charity shop regularly.
The general concensus seems to be that 'yes, some (but obviously not all) charity shops are taking the *** on their prices tho' (to quote the OP).