Aibu to make money from a charity shop purchase?

[Partnerprobs]

Recently went to a charity shop and found a couple of items for sale that I liked and were in very good condition. A handbag and a book. Both were in a locked cabinet. I bought them for £25 in total and have sold them on eBay for £75 and £34 pounds, so I’ve made about £84 (less eBay fees which I haven’t seen yet)

My best friend was really shocked and said it’s like stealing and I should donate the money to the charity - this has surprised and unnerved me as I thought it was fine (as they were in the cabinet so had been picked as higher end items, and also they were more expensive than normal items)

I thought it was a lucky break and was looking forward to treating myself.

Aibu?

At no point have I said shops should sell things for the same price as they could get on EBay or elsewhere- I appreciate the goal is to get them sold ASAP.
Also at no point have I said staff should be getting customers.
As I have stipulated above- what I actually said was that people often donate to charity shops in the hope it is bought by someone who needs it. For example- if I donated a fridge I would HOPE it would benefit someone on a low income who otherwise couldn’t afford one as opposed to someone who planned to buy it and turn a profit on it.
Essentially that I don’t think people should do this!
I have said very little about what charity shops THEMSELVES do- my points have been in relation to CUSTOMERS taking advantage.

@VestaTilley

I think it’s immoral and I wouldn’t have done it, but there you go.

Even though actual charity shops don't care and find resellers to be valuable repeat customers that shift stock?

I haven't yet seen a single actual argument as to why this is so terrible. Just a load of variations of "I'm too good a person but that's just me".

It's just an easy moralistic stick, isn't it? But there's nothing to hold it up.

what I actually said was that people often donate to charity shops in the hope it is bought by someone who needs it

They really don't. But if they do, they're idiots if they don't just Freecycle the stuff and do the screening themselves to decide who is poor enough to be worthy of their cast offs.

If what you want is to help the charity fulfil its objectives, just give it the goods and let it use its expert knowledge to decide how it can best use them.

DrSbaitso It is irrelevant that someone working in a charity shop doesn’t care- the reality is, as this poll has shown, several thousand people DO care, and these will make up some of the charities donors! Their views should be equally respected instead of disparaged and told they can’t be right because you as charity shop worker don’t agree with them.

@MissM2912

DrSbaitso It is irrelevant that someone working in a charity shop doesn’t care- the reality is, as this poll has shown, several thousand people DO care, and these will make up some of the charities donors! Their views should be equally respected instead of disparaged and told they can’t be right because you as charity shop worker don’t agree with them.

The charity donors are giving money. They're not giving old clothes and dog eared children's toys.

You're now just going back to the old "respect their views" rather than making any actual point about them. If the only argument you've got for your view is that it's not illegal to hold it, it's hardly convincing.

If your objective is to get your cast offs to suitably grateful poor people, Freecycle them and screen the potential recipients yourself.

DrSbaitso Physical objects are still donations!!! They are still donors to your charity. And you have no idea what each of their motivations is in giving stuff in.
I appreciate that there is nothing staff in charity shops can do when a customer buys it, but this post wasn’t about the shop themselves but about the customer’s behaviour!

@MissM2912

DrSbaitso Physical objects are still donations!!! They are still donors to your charity. And you have no idea what each of their motivations is in giving stuff in. I appreciate that there is nothing staff in charity shops can do when a customer buys it, but this post wasn’t about the shop themselves but about the customer’s behaviour!

Not very charitable if they're giving only to satisfy what they want rather than what's best for the charity, is it?

So I ask a third time:

Do you want the goods going to poor people (low prices) or to get the best possible online profit for the charity (high prices)?

And can you tell me, without mentioning your right to your opinion, how the charity would have benefited further if OP had kept her goods rather than reselling them?

DrSbaitso You are being deliberately obtuse. Most items will be sold for relatively low costs as that is all they are worth and therefore affordable to many people on low income.
With regards to selling more expensive things for the highest price of course go for it, but as there will still be many essential things available at low cost I imagine a shop will be able to cater for a range of buyers!
With regards to the ethics question about how does it impact the shop if someone sells on at a profit- it obviously doesn’t but it DOES take advantage of the donor who most likely will not have donated the item with that intention otherwise they would have done it themselves and kept the flipping money for themselves. It is exploitative.

With regards to the ethics question about how does it impact the shop if someone sells on at a profit- it obviously doesn’t but it DOES take advantage of the donor who most likely will not have donated the item with that intention otherwise they would have done it themselves and kept the flipping money for themselves. It is exploitative.

So the donor would rather the charity gets less money for the item?

Slashlover I don’t understand your point?? The person donating the item is doing so with the intention that the charity benefits- not a random member of the public selling on at a profit. If the charity has sold for what they deem to be fair that’s what the donor is hoping for I would imagine!

@MissM2912

Slashlover I don’t understand your point?? The person donating the item is doing so with the intention that the charity benefits- not a random member of the public selling on at a profit. If the charity has sold for what they deem to be fair that’s what the donor is hoping for I would imagine!

That's what the charity does! They sell for the highest amount they know they will be able to get in the circumstances they have. Often, for higher value goods, resellers will pay more than another customer so resellers can actually make the charity more money than they otherwise would have.

@MissM2912

DrSbaitso You are being deliberately obtuse. Most items will be sold for relatively low costs as that is all they are worth and therefore affordable to many people on low income. With regards to selling more expensive things for the highest price of course go for it, but as there will still be many essential things available at low cost I imagine a shop will be able to cater for a range of buyers! With regards to the ethics question about how does it impact the shop if someone sells on at a profit- it obviously doesn’t but it DOES take advantage of the donor who most likely will not have donated the item with that intention otherwise they would have done it themselves and kept the flipping money for themselves. It is exploitative.

I was going to ask if you understand how charity shops work but that question has been amply answered already.

Charity shops are a draw because they are dirt cheap. That's their appeal. You do seem to know this because beforehand, you were saying they existed to make things affordable for poor people. Now that you've been pushed three times on the fact that this means not selling at online prices, you've decided they're for "a range of buyers", by which I assume you mean a range of prices, since anyone can be a charity shop customer.

Regarding your ethics pretzel logic, if you prioritise the wants of a donor over the outcomes for the charity's objectives, well, I'm not surprised that you don't understand charity shops. Donors, if they want to be useful, should have no intention except for the charity doing as it sees fit. Remember our donor who gave us an absolutely useless property but wouldn't let us sell it? How much should we have prioritised his intentions with that white elephant?

If your primary concern is your cast offs going directly to a certain type of person, do the work yourself and screen recipients. Once you give away a gift, it is no longer yours and nobody should understand that more than a charity donor.

@MissM2912

DrSbaitso You are being deliberately obtuse. Most items will be sold for relatively low costs as that is all they are worth and therefore affordable to many people on low income. With regards to selling more expensive things for the highest price of course go for it, but as there will still be many essential things available at low cost I imagine a shop will be able to cater for a range of buyers! With regards to the ethics question about how does it impact the shop if someone sells on at a profit- it obviously doesn’t but it DOES take advantage of the donor who most likely will not have donated the item with that intention otherwise they would have done it themselves and kept the flipping money for themselves. It is exploitative.

Flipping invokes effort and not a small amount of knowledge. To identify, list item, liaise with customers and sell. The fact that people donated items to charity shop means that they don’t want to do any of the above and would rather be rid of it.

Also you ascribe too many altruistic motives to donors. The amount of crap charities receive (and I’ve worked in one before) make it abundantly clear that the majority of people see it as a convenient way to de clutter. These clothes would otherwise have gone to the bin - so it’s really the charity in some way providing a ‘service’ rather than the other way round…

*clothes or otherwise of course

@MissM2912

Slashlover I don’t understand your point?? The person donating the item is doing so with the intention that the charity benefits- not a random member of the public selling on at a profit. If the charity has sold for what they deem to be fair that’s what the donor is hoping for I would imagine!

The charity does benefit! For the exact amount it thought it could! And online prices are still less than new prices so who's to say the reseller's customer isn't also a worthy recipient who just didn't live anywhere near the charity shop?

What if the reseller kept the goods for five years and then sold at a profit? Is that acceptable? Why?

The more this goes on, the more it looks like empty knee jerk moralism with absolutely no reasoning behind it.

With regards to the ethics question about how does it impact the shop if someone sells on at a profit- it obviously doesn’t but it DOES take advantage of the donor

I'm sure you'll tell me I'm misinterpreting etc, but this logic really is just prioritising the wants of the donor over the outcomes for the charity. Your objection isn't that it costs the charity, because as you state, it doesn't. The charity benefits. It's just that you insist many donors wouldn't like someone else also benefiting by reselling.

Well first of all, prioritise your charity's outcomes.

And second, if your donors don't understand that you can't control what people do with their purchases, then it's either on you to educate them (and good luck, because they must be thick), or it's on them to give away or sell the stuff themselves (screening recipients, of course) and pass you the money directly.

Customers have no obligation to the unknown donor's unknown wishes. It's on the donor to recognise the implications when they give their stuff away.

I don't think you did anything wrong, OP. The charity shop sold the items to you at the prices they set. What you did with the items was your concern, not theirs.

There's an interesting tension, isn't there? Sometimes charity shops sell items below their market value so that people can afford to buy these items. Selling them at a higher price would mean that many people couldn't afford to shop there and the items might remain unsold.

@MissM2912

DrSbaitso I take exception to your attitude that it essentially doesn’t matter what the person donating stuff thinks. I think that is very rude and shows almost a disdain to those who are wanting to support the charity and like I have said- provide donations of things they feel would benefit those in need! As a charity manager I am genuinely appalled at this attitude. That may well be what and other shop managers think but it is not at all respectful to those who may have a different agenda to you!

I missed this gem!

I'll leave aside the desperate scratching around for something to be self righteous and condescending about, and go for the problems in the actual argument, such as it is.

As a charity manager, you need to prioritise your charity's objectives and desired outcomes because, you know, that's what you exist for. Charity shops don't exist to provide goods for poor people, they exist to raise money, fast.

Your donors should want to benefit the charity. If they don't understand how charity shops do this, then you can be as morally appalled by me as you like, but you'd do better to communicate the facts to them (though Bog knows how they got to 2021 without realising this).

If they want to be sure all their cast offs go to worthy poor people, they can Freecycle them and screen the recipients. Your charity shop won't get jack, but the donors' wishes will be fulfilled, which is apparently your priority, and you can still be as appalled by me and my moral turpitude as you clearly wish to be.

I'm sure many donors want to help the charity and give decent articles for sale. However, I've read of cases where dirty clothing, including underclothes, is donated and broken pieces of houseware, broken toys, incomplete jigsaws, etc.

Charity shops would be drowning in donations if they put all items at their exact worth. My understanding is that, apart from obviously valuable articles, they prefer a quick turnover, even if it means getting less than they would get on an internet site.

Some people seem to use every opportunity to demonstrate their supposed moral superiority but, if that involves comparing a friend to being a thief or as being morally deficient in some way, I think that presumed moral superiority is questionable.

I’d imagine, who are disadvantaged and truely poor would find shopping in thrift shops embarrassing as it’s all a bit too close to home.
A thrift top can look great with a fresh pair of jeans, quality accessories and an expensive haircut. Head to toe, un-drycleaned or non tailored items made out of fabrics that need ironing, not so much.
What is actually good for the disadvantaged is supermarket uniforms and tshirt packs so kids can be clothed in something clean that fits with a minimum of cost and effort but none one sings their praises.
If charity shops has such complicated systems to only sell to worthy buyers, they would make no money by the time costs were covered and very few items would be recycled.
When you give someone, that’s the end of it, that’s why it’s called a gift (as opposed to an obligation).

Business is business, the charity got the asking price, then you resold and made a profit. Not much different than charity selling new goods items.

I thought buying something to sell on for profit on could make you liable for tax.

I would donate half to the charity, but I'm generous, skint but generous

I think charity shop bargains are fine, whatever you do with them. If one of my necklace finds was at its full official price in a charity shop, I wouldn't buy it: partly because if I'm paying full whack I don't want to buy from a charity shop, but also because if I buy at an antiques fair, they'll generally drop the price, so it'll end up cheaper than a charity shop.

I find it deeply concerning that several charity shop staff are so disregarding of the views of those that donate to their shops

I find it odd that there are donors who think the donating process is essentially all about them and charity shop managers who think this sort of attitude is one that should be respected and even pandered to.

Charity shops exist to raise money. They attempt to maximise the revenue they generate. Some donations are sold on in bulk as rags. Some are sold online. Some make it to the sales floor at a price that makes them attractive. What makes a price attractive involves many factors.

The sales floor must generate income. The online platform must generate income. To achieve this, floor space and storage space can't be taken up with items that are not selling because they are filthy, ragged, broken, or priced too high.