Be Excellent To Each Other

A blog on our local town recently had an 'article' on #comments" class="postlink">buying things from local charity shops and then selling them on ebay for a profit.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, i'm kind of torn. I'm all for resourcefulness and taking an opportunity, but buying something that has been donated to a charity shop just to sell on ebay for a profit sits a little bit uncomfortably with me. Although, the charity shop is still gettting their money, it's just not as much as maybe they could have - but better that they get a little bit of dosh than the original owner if they sell the stuff on ebay instead of donating it.

How would you feel if you had donated goods to charity and someone else had made a nice bit of cash out of it? I've given unwanted clothes and tat to charity shops and not really given much of thought to it, until now.

I don't think I have too much of a problem with other people doing it (and it's not illegal or nuffink) but don't think I could actually do it myself.

I wouldn't give a shit. It would take all of 3 minutes for a charity shop to look on eBay to try and find out what they're selling is actually worth so they can stick a decent price on it, and more and more charity shops are doing exactly this.

If a shop doesn't, that's their problem.

I've done it myself, but not intentionally.

Bought some Mega Drive games because they were very cheap, even though I didn't want them myself, but I thought one of my mates probably would. Then when no one did want them, I ended up selling them on eBay. Made a small profit.

I dunno, charity shop folk seem to be awful at pricing up games, they seem to think value is directly proportional to box size. I have a few times said "that is far too expensive, you'll never sell it at that price" or "that is really cheap, you should charge a bit more" to try to help them out. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they think that I am trying to scam them (I never barter down on prices of stuff I am trying to buy).

The biggest downside I can see with people doing this is that poorer people who use charity shops as a cheap shop will struggle to do so as much. I know when I was a kid and my parents were poor loads of our stuff came from charity shops, and so they saved a lot of money.

What is far worse are the people that shove bags through your doors asking for clothes donations to take to "Africa", and word it as if it sounds like a charity, but actually if you look at the small print, they sell the clothes.

I've picked up retro gear at village fetes and sold it on for a profit. There was a book about Sinclair that cost 50p and I sold for 50 quid, and a Game and Watch game I gave a quid for (they tried to give me change which I refused) that also went for about 50 quid. Also I gave a fiver for an Amiga that I sold for 40. All done at a time when I was hard up for cash so I didn't feel bad at all.

Charity shops are scumbags anyway. Oxfams latest scam is setting up second hand bookshops and putting proper second hand book dealers out of business. As a charity you only pay a fraction of the rates and also get your staff and stock for free. Poor old Mr Secondhand book dealer (as seen in The Yellow Pages advert) just can't compete. He pays full whack rates, pays for stock and pays for staff. He also doesn't have the clout of a huge sinister multinational corporation behind him.

You cold hard Thatherites might say "well serves the book dealers right" but alot of them do it for the love. If you've ever been into a proper second hand book shop like one I visited in Penzance at Christmas they are splendid places crammed to the roof with books with owners who know every last book they have in stock.

Think I'm making this up? Just a quick Google reveals:

http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/4520280._Oxfam_killed_my_bookshop_/?ref=mr

Oxfam = evil.

[edit] Two bunch of evil corporations for the price of one. Our friends at the PRS want 300 quid from him as well!

Yeah, don't care. If the charity shop doesn't put any effort into valuing stuff that comes in the door for free, then too bad. That said, it seems rather greedy.

Most of the stuff that's donated to one of the ones near me ends up straight in the big wheelie bin at the back anyway, they don't even bother to recycle or give away the things they don't want - straight into landfill with it.


Trawling freecycle for items and then carbooting or ebaying them seems a bit poor though. Discuss.

Get away... so Oxfam that make money for good causes are undercutting book sellers who do it for profit!!

This is it. And the problem is that they chronically overprice tat and actually throw away good stuff. If it's electrical it will probably get binned. Send them a boxed ZX80 and it will end up in landfill rather than fetching 200 sovs on Ebay.

Remember though, that a lot of people use Freecycle or dump stuff off at their local charity shop because they're too lazy to get decent cash for it. If someone wants to put the time and effort into turning a profit, good on them.

I've certainly trawled charity shops for stuff to put on my site. The way I see it is that I'm putting the effort in looking for games (charity shops aren't great for them so it's pretty fruitless most of the time) and saving a casual browser the job.

I don't see it as the charity shop losing out though - they've priced something up and I've bought it at that price.

It's not the person giving the stuff away who is wronged though it's the person who might have got something they needed but couldn't afford if it weren't for some skanky twat selling it all at a car boot sale.

Yeah, fuck anyone who wants to earn a living as long as Oxfam can keep their HQ in expensive artworks and their executives can be highly paid while all the while getting 80% rate relief and therefore contributing fuck all to the local economy.

You wonder why the country has gone down the shitter? Charity shops are a serious problem because they contribute very little to the local economy and are very hard to get rid off once established. However nobody will speak out against them.

I am really misunderstanding... how do the not put stuff back in the economy?

Because they hardly pay any tax, all they do is take in money and give most of it away to poor people, the absolute bastards.

Perhaps, but a lot also give things away to "give something back", and contribute to freecycle as they've received from it. If they see their stuff turning up at the car boot sale (as happened recently on my local freecycle*), they'll probably think twice next time.

Also freecycle is a great resource if you don't have much money and don't want to waste it. By picking up the things with some value and selling them, you're profiting by preventing someone else from getting a thing they need for free and actually using it.

* Someone posting wanted ads for dvd players, vacuum cleaners and the like, lying that "theirs had broken" etc.

ah... right

They pay hardly any tax, might employ a single manager for a shop (or more likely across several shops) therefore denying jobs from the local economy and a terrifying amount of money actually goes on admin. The dirty secret of the charity shop is that alot of them hardly bring in anything after admin and running costs. One person involved in the charity industry told me that they are more a "shop front" for a charity. Yeah some do well, but by no means all.

I work with alot of charities at close hand. Some do terrific work but I've seen practices from two slightly larger charities that literally made me feel physically sick. I'm not detailing it here but they are often badly managed and cynically manipulate the public for fundraising purposes.

I thought it was around 10%?

[edit]What Chinny said.

Those guys standing on the shopping streets bothering people for money for donating to charity?

Usually being paid £7+ per hour. I've never seen them in groups numbering less than three, and they're there all day.

Not all are like this, I know that MS Society collectors (and the RAF and suchlike) are volunteers and are unpaid. You can usually tell the difference because the volunteers sit there quietly and don't aggressively target people to shame money out of them, whereas the chuggers relentlessly chase people around the place.

I make a fun game of trying to pick a route walking down market street in manchester, zig zagging so that none of them approach me.

Chugger dodging I calls it.

They are easy to spot. I think I posted on here how I was walking home at 7.30pm at the end of last year and this girl approached me. She was one of those professional charity beggers. What the hell she was doing at that time of night god only knows but she literally ran across the road to get me. Fuckers.

You can always tell them though. They always wear branded T-shirts, have umbrelles, are overkeen, unwashed and are usually students.

Real charities don't use them and what's more feel that they give all charities a bad name.

I do this as they hunt in packs around here and you can only pretend you are on the phone so many times.

I will pointedly walk in a big detour around them to make it quite clear I have no intention of giving them my bank details, but they will still run up to me and bother me. I've long since given up being polite to them when they do this and now actively tell them to fuck off and leave me alone.

I tell chuggers politely but firmly "no", and if they persist I tell them to fuck off. Except for those that have now taken to knocking on my door of an evening, they just get told to fuck off out of hand.

I may have misunderstood this but I didn't really think that charity shops made a great deal of profit and the original intention was for them to be a cheap place for people to shop who couldn't afford to go elsewhere. So the people who are missing out on the stuff which is actually ok quality and worth something are the very people the shop is meant to serve.
I'm not too sure on this, I think it may be a bit crap but I've not decided.

I got held up by several fucking silly people (individually, not working together) who were collecting money to "find Maddie" a few days after the news went nuts. I told the last one "haven't you heard? They've found her body" and she ran off, presumably to find a TV.

Have 951 Bananas and a star for mathematical excellence.

Haha, excellent.

GAMAL

Malc

In a rare and shocking twist, I actually agree with Chinny on this one.

Also, PRS! Is there no depth to your villainy?

I'm not sure if that was the original intention, but it is a benefit, where true (though that is fairly rare - you can get new clothes cheaper on the bargain rail at TK Maxx usually, for example). A better resource for those people would be Freecycle though, where it would cost them nothing.

But you're right, someone going out of their way to snap up the better deals and make cash moneys out of it is being a bit crap.
Not saying I wouldn't do it myself if I only had £2 left in the world and spotted something in the window worth a lot more...

This. I got a computer desk off freecycle recently, which was nice. Had to trundle it a good kilometre across Roath, mind, nearly replicating that ace bit in Seinfeld where George emulates Frogger in his attempt to push an extension corded Frogger arcade machine with his highest ever champion score across the road, dodging traffic as he does so.

I carried a sofa home many years ago, from somewhere about a mile away. The looks people gave you when you had a rest on the pavement were priceless.

Big charities are very hard to distinguish from big businesses. I worked as admin and then a trainer for a big charity and the contrast between the actual charity workers and the 'support' staff as unreal - the 'executives' and managers all had brand new company cars, computers, and phones, not to mention ridiculous salaries. The volunteers/workers, meanwhile, lived and worked like peasants. Even in my lowly role I still was given a new car, a laptop and phone, all paid for by the charity. And don't get me started on the expenses...

Difference being, of course, that the big companies don't try to pretend otherwise. I don't have a whole lot of respect for the big charities.

I mostly feel sorry for the people who donate or volunteer (see: Charitable Chester in Viz) who think every penny goes straight where it's needed, and not to fuelling some manager's new company Audi so they can go to a posh hotel and guzzle wine.

To drink the Devil's Advocaat, if you are or become a very large charity then you need people to run it like a large business, or you'll waste money all the time.

People who have the requisite experience often don't work for peanuts.

I agree there's probably a middle ground and balance that they have not found, but you can't expect the CEO of a company with X million at his disposal to be paid eff all, even if it is a charity.

But at the same time, they really don't need a new Audi every year, do they?

Been doing some digging on Oxfam and what profit the shops make. 30% is immediately deducted for marketing and HQ running costs. Then they have their shop rent, a manager to pay and their (small) rates. Not to mention other bills like the leccy etc. Fitting out a new shop from scratch may cost £20,000 in total which means that has to be paid for from somewhere.

The conclusion being is that that next to nothing goes to charity from the shops. Apparently the real money comes from large donations and grants. The shops are all about PR.

While I'm not saying they should have to work for peanuts, at the same time seeing them getting the same sort of benefits and salary you'd find in a huge corporation is a bit galling, and I often wondered what the little old dears who volunteered in the shops would think if they knew.

I then thought that perhaps they *did* know, but carried on regardless because they still had the needy at heart, not the money to be made.

a) I've bought some decent clothes from Oxfam (including my most awesome RAF Great coat, for 40 quid).
b) I've also worked for several months in an Oxfam shop. it's bloody hard work at times.
c) I know a fair few people that work for Oxfam, and, to be quite honest, they deserve their pay.
d) If second hand bookshops can't earn a lviing, then their business plan is fucked. Also, it's probably being run to offset tax for their husbands massive GP salary.

I'd love a great coat, but they didn't make them in fot bostid size

I look fucking awesome in mine, if I do say so myself.

The guy in the example I gave says he's lost 2 grand a month since the Oxfam opened up. He says there were previously two other second hand bookshops in town and they've also closed down.

So he's got this far but combined with the downturn he's quitting before he loses money. For a small business that is a significant amount of cash. Chances are that 2 grand was probably the profit.

It is unfair competition as the Oxfam shop has a much lower cost base (for the reasons I mentioned) and is probably in a prime location. I wonder how much old and curious stuff Oxfam shift compared to a back street book seller. The local Oxfam book shop is setup like a new book shop selling titles that are current or nearly current. When we were down in Penzance Mrs Chinny spent in the region of 60 quid buying two rare books on pottery gubbins that caught her eye. I'm not a book person but that shop was wonderful, a proper old fashioned book shop owned by someone who appeared to know about every single one of the thousands of books he had in stock. When he asked where I was from he remaked that he had a book about the town in stock and proceeded to talk to me about it. Apparently he'd purchased some books from a former town mayor who had retired to Penzance.

So in conclusion Oxfam = charity that does good but the vast majority of the money you spend in the shops does not go to good causes but is pissed away on admin/marketing and wages. In all probability 5% max goes to good causes while in the meantime sucking money away from the local economy and putting other shops out of business.

On the plus side, I got all my Far Side books from Oxfam.

I love 2nd hand books. All things being equal I prefer my books to be second hand. I like them to have a history, that I'm only part off.

As a kid I bought hundreds of second hand books - all about the paranormal, it was ace. They were my internet basically. I always see 2nd hand books (commercial or charity) as serving the community by providing knowledge on the cheap.

I swore off Oxfam though by their FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS behaviour during my undergrad. They would do this big campaign to get people to donate their text books at the end of the year and then sell them on at the start of the next. Which makes perfect sense, students get cheap books and oxfam gets a bit of dosh each year for being the middle man.

Except the oxfam store would sell these text books for maybe 2 to 5 quid less than RRP. We are talking £15 to £40 a book. Ordinary books would also be only a pound or two below RRP.

Absolute dicks.

Around the corner from my office, there's a small old fashioned charity shop. It's run by the elderly wife of the local slightly eccentric newspaper magnate.

Every month they raise money for a charity and every month there is a poster in the window saying in huge letters who they are raising money for this month and how much they raised last month and what charity they went to.

And that my friends is how it should be. Totally transparent. I strongly suspect that the shop itself is owned by the managers husband so no rent will be paid.

I often wonder how many people realise that the old lady behind the counter is married to the UK's 200 and something richest man?

Anyway, perhaps charity shops should have to declare by law how much they raised the previous month and where it went?

I often buy Deco pottery from lesser known factories in charity shops for a few quid and sell them on to dealers for 50 or 60.

I found a particularly rare Myott vase worth around £500 and gave it to my very happy Mum (she collects Myott) for Chrimbo.

Am I evil for using my knowledge to make profit?

Oxfam would probably reason that being poor and unemployed in the UK is still living like a king for the poor and unemployed in Darkest Africa. You know, where they have no money for food or medicine, but plenty for tanks and guns, and all the kids you see in the videos have Arsenal strips and the women have gold jewellery and elaborate 'Mother Shabooboo' outfits.

My mum works in a charidee shop and has 'those' types come in all the time. Recently they had a woman come in demanding to see inside the donation bags that were not yet open.

Mum refused, stating that it was law for her to check the items to make sure there were no electrical goods knives or sharp objects.

Said woman became incredibly irate, accusing Mum and her co workers (who all work for fuck all) of, and I quote -



Sure, mum will BUY things before other people get the chance (books & DVDS that we end up giving back for NOTHING) but certainly doesn't need other people's old shit.

In the end the woman became so rude and vile that they escorted her out of the store and called the police.

At the end of the day at least the stuff gets sold, for what the charidee shop wants for it and it goes to charidee. And TBH? I think otherwise it would just end up in a landfill somewhere. So I don't really care, but getting shitty and demanding to have priveliges over other customers is gay mmkay.