To think I've done nothing wrong by making money on a charity

[Thealarmhasgoneoffagain]

I bought a dress for £60 in a charity shop. I didn't think many people would recognise the brand as it's locally made but it would have cost about £300 I think and would probably be a ooak. I'm asuming the charity shop knew this though because of the high price.

I bought the dress for me but it doesn't fit. I didn't want to get a refund from a charity shop but at that price I can't redonate it either. So I put it on my local FB page askimg for offers. I said it was from the charity shop but I didn't put how much I paid. If anyone asked I would have told them.

Someone offered me £100 and I accepted. They collected it and messaged me afterwards to say how happy they were.

Before I could remove the post someone commented that they worked in the shop and it cost £50. Now I'm getting lots of abuse about being greedy and ripping off the charity. The lady who bought it has put angry faces on it. I also have a couple of things on there for free and people have made nasty comments on those. I've removed all my posts now.

I don't feel bad about making money on the dress as that was never my intention. £60 was much, much more than I would normally spend in a charity shop and tbh I don't want to donate the £40. It was a proper charity shop, not one run by little old ladies who price everything at 50p because they don't know any better.

The lady who bought it, offered £100 and never asked how much I paid and was happy until she found out I paid less. I do feel bad that she won't enjoy the dress though as it's a beautiful dress.

AIBU for keeping the £40?

Nothing wrong with buying from charity shops and selling for a profit. The charity shop made their money from it and when you bought it, it was yours to do whatever you want with going forward.

Just don’t use local FB pages where an angry charity shop worker might be lurking!

Also, my DH has just commented:

"How many times on Dickinson's Real Deal or Antiques Roadshow do we see people who've bought stuff from charity shops for pennies, then sold them on for £100's, sometimes £1000's?".

You can clear your conscience and forget about it.

P.S. Definitely make a complaint about the charity shop worker.

Perfect example

What difference does it make?

Charity shops check brands in any case and price accordingly and if they didn’t ahhh well. They made £60, OP made a profit. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Don't people make a living out of doing this?

touve Not done anything wrong, you paid the price the charity shop wantedthen the person paying £100 paid what they wanted to pay, you made an extra bit, all happy!

Did you read my second paragraph? OP knew its value and its desirability, as demonstrated by the fact that it was snapped up for £100 when she asked for offers on Facebook. She could have shared this knowledge with the charity shop if she had so wished.

I agree with the above.

To me it comes down to ethics; personally I find these actions morally abhorrent. I know when I donate it's with the hope that someone could have something nicer that may usually be beyond their means (price wise), not so someone else gets to make a quick buck.

I did at the time and they were quite rude and said if I thought I could get the same elsewhere then I should shop there instead.

So I did

When I got to know a few people we got talking about charity shops and my experience and was told the woman in charge of the shop thought that as we lived in what people thought of as an upmarket area then everything donated was designer.

Atmosphere apparently was a designer brand🤣🤣🤣

You have done no wrong. You are fully entitled to keep your £40 profit and enjoy it.

I know of someone who volunteers for a charity shop and regularly buys items from their shops at full price and resells them online for a profit.

That perspective I also can understand

And when other people donate it is because they can't be arsed to sort through it all, or they can't be bothered to go to the tip.
Ask any charity shop volunteer about what gets donated.. a lot of it is crap... some of it disgusting (think dirty underwear).

And I can also vouch for that perspectives too, as much as donation are appreciated, from a friends experience, they do get a mixed lot of items, so to speak.

The shop knows, for crying out loud, as evidenced by the fact it was priced at £60, which is high for a charity shop. The point is, it's got to price things based on what it's realistically going to get from people who walk into the shop looking for inexpensive goods.

You don't go into charity shops looking to spend £100 on one item. They're known for cheap spends. And they don't have the resources to hold an online auction to reach a wider audience. They price it at what they think they will get from local footfall. They don't have warehouses full of identical goods, they have lots of one offs and the best way they can make a profit is to shift it fast so they can keep restocking with new goods.

You're failing to understand that a) goods don't fetch the same price on all platforms and in all places and b) the business model isn't based on squeezing every last penny out, but on keeping stock moving fast.

She's done nothing wrong.

Yes I did. It’s not the OP’s job to do the charity shop’s job for them. With a big charity like BHF, whilst the shop assistants may be volunteers, the shop manager will most certainly be paid. It is their job to ensure they get the most money for their charity.

Also OP had no idea she’d get £100 until the woman offered. Was she then meant to say oh sorry no but if you go to the BHF shop in town I’ll tell them you are willing to pay £100 for it?

I go to invitation only designer sample sales regularly. There are signs everywhere saying “strictly not for resale”. If the charity shop doesn’t want anyone to resell, they would say so.
As PP said, resellers keep the stock ticking over. You’ve done nothing wrong.

Bingo bongo, you are wrongo.

The ONLY aim of a charity is to raise money for their cause, whether that be cats' protection, cancer research, air ambulance, overseas development, etc.

What you "believe" to be their purpose is neither here nor there.

And - based on my experience shared earlier on this thread - they wouldn't have been interested. They would rather put items up at prices that will sell reasonably easily and quickly than mark them up at a higher and less attractive price.

Many charities also sell higher priced items through eBay, the charity shop also had that option.

I know, bhf has their own, dedicated eBay

I literally said she has done nothing wrong.

Refund from a charity shop? Seriously- you are joking aren't you?

@Thealarmhasgoneoffagain did you gift aid your donation? Because if so the charity got £75 from the dress so even less of a gap.

They'll sell online if they have the resources to make that a profitable use of their time.

Frequently it isn't, because online selling is a bloody hassle. That's why so many of us would rather dump a huge bag of wearable clothes at the charity shop than photograph them, list them, watch them, pay the site fees, pack them up and post them.

They're pricing to their market. They are aware it's a smaller market than online and they don't care, that's how markets work. They just want the stuff gone, quickly, at asking price.