Money Moral Dilemma: Is it OK to sell items from pound shops online for a profit?

Ed264

How enterprising. As you say, it's the buyer's choice whether or not to buy the items. If you can earn a reasonable living from this then so be it. Just make sure you declare it to HMRC to keep yourself safe. All the best to you with it.

confusedgranny

Everyone seems to be saying it's OK. But when you buy pound shop brands you probably know that you might be getting something made to a lower standard, so if people buy from you expecting a better quality then maybe there is a problem. Though they have the convenience of online shopping, so maybe not.

soolin

confusedgranny said:

Everyone seems to be saying it's OK. But when you buy pound shop brands you probably know that you might be getting something made to a lower standard, so if people buy from you expecting a better quality then maybe there is a problem. Though they have the convenience of online shopping, so maybe not.

Poundshop usually sell other brands, I suspect the items being sold aren't branded poundshop.

For example the item (actually it is a line of goods) I am aware of is a brand that sells in other shops for £10-£12 an item, for some reason pound shop ended up with just a few pieces from the range and people were rushing to buy it.

Someone earlier mentioned nail varnish, and again a few months back before Christmas one of the discounters got an expensive brand of nail varnish in very limited colours, and that flew off the shelves as well and a lot of that ended up on places like ebay.

I am a coeliac and buy gluten free bread, a couple of years back one of the discounters got hold of a very popular GF range of bread, I think many of us who need GF had several packs in our freezer!

janebrain

gothvixen said:

I am an avid bargain hunter, and spot when items appear on ebay.that I know have been sourced very cheaply. Bulk buyers have been guilty of ordering large quantities of boots/coats/bags from everything5pounds.com and even using the site's own photos to sell them. I find this immoral. Plenty of people need bargain items because they can't afford them at full price. Bulk buyers who swoop in as soon as they're online will deprive some impoverished souls from having a warm coat, or young girls from getting a pretty prom dress. I imagine many different scenarios, because there are too many people in real poverty. On that basis, how do you condone such profiteering?

I've sold a few pieces on Ebay from everything5pounds and made a small profit but it's fair enough isn't it? The items were wrongly sized so didn't fit me ( They are really bad at this)

squirrel59

For Heaven's sake, of course it's ok! I think it's very enterprising of you. It's a free country and people don't have to buy from you, do they? Good luck with it.

martindow

keithyno.1 said:

The tax affairs of the poster are a matter purely between them and HMRC and nothing to do with you or any of the rest of us.

Personally I'm rather more concerned that Amazon escape with paying an inconsequential amount of tax in this country in spite of the hundreds of millions £ worth of business they conduct within these shores. 

I agree with you regarding multinationals like Amazon who go to great lengths to use international tax rules to pay as little tax as possible.  But I think that this eBay seller not declaring and paying tax (if that is what is happening) is also our business.  We all suffer from people evading tax - some eBay sellers including large ones who should also be paying VAT, Airbnb owners and anyone else who hides income that should be declared.

soolin

Why are people suggesting the OP isn't making a full declaration to HMRC, the original post doesn't mention that at all. I suspect a lot of people are projecting their own actions onto someone else, or perhaps they have a guilty conscience. 

psm2day

People are lazy and can't be bothered to search for a product themselves to see if its cheaper elsewhere, there's a presumption that the likes of ebay and amazon are the cheapest places to buy from.

I found this out about 15 years ago, I listed a few engineering books for lathes on ebay that I had read and didn't need anymore so I thought instead of just putting them in the loft I would see if I could get a few quid for them.

It was my first experience of selling on ebay and I was shocked to see books I had bought for less than £10 were attracting bids of £40+, a couple sold for £50, I thought it was some scam but the buyers paid up, left me good feedback and I even had people who were outbid asking me if I had more, well thought why not, I promptly bought more from the same website I had before and continued to sell these books for a hell of a lot more than what I paid for them, this went on for many months but I felt really guilty about it and in the end I started purchasing the books with many more titles from the publishers and sold them at the RRP for a few years.

Had any of my purchasers bothered to just put the books titles into Google (or whatever the search engines were back then) then the first search result was the website I was getting them from, so proving people are lazy.

Carpman249

You're a disgrace buying things you dont need and stopping someone else who can't afford paying more elsewhere. Stop it now!

CathWat

I have bought garments on ebay that I particularly wanted but missed out on in sales, paying more, and was glad I did so.  If I bought something unknowingly at a higher price than available on the high street or online, then tough - let the buyer beware