For not paying nearly £20 for a second hand coat?

[Sbrown32]

So, today I went charity shopping for the first time in a while as I needed a winter coat for the last few months of my pregnancy. I found a really lovely one that I wanted, it was a nice colour and the quality wasn't to bad, a few imperfections but overall I was happy, until I went to go look at the price 🙃 £18.50!! I don't know if I am just being cheap but that seemed expensive for anything second hand!

Most of my clothes are second hand and I rarely buy brand new, I am used to paying a few £ for any item of clothing and have gotten many coats in the past for £5 - £10 depending on type of coat. I just can't get over it and may have embarrassed the OH with my rant inside the store 🤣

You're not rolling the dice at all in a charity shop. The item is right there in front of you. You can see if it is clean or not.

Yes and you might think its ok i can get that mark out pay for it and be unable too or maybe the shop is a bit stinky and you don't realise its your outfit that stinks on ebay etc you can return it or get a refund who will take something back to a charity shop?...no-one will so you waste money

The pricing model is basically the intersection of desirability of the item, affordability, and maximising profit for the charity - if you think of it as a line graph.

Each item will produce a different looking graph.

In the US, the Goodwill thrift chain uses a uniform pricing model to maximise profit. There are some items that don't get the uniform pricing, but the vast majority of goods do.

I disagree with both @Postcardsenderand @ParmaVioletTeaon this particular score.

The example of Goodwill in the US, which has a uniform pricing model, attracts many resellers - there are probably thousands of videos online of people raking the racks and piling their trollies high with items to resell, or finding an overlooked once-pricy item that is very desirable to online buyers.

And that's fine - the donations keep on coming in by the carload. It is very convenient to donate. Stuff Goodwill can't sell is sorted in the back room. Nobody has to wait while someone goes through their eighteen bags of items and nobody will be sent home with bags they hoped to get rid of. Nobody cares what happens to their stuff after it's dropped off, or they would try selling it themselves online or at a consignment store.

People understand that their coat that cost them $300 will be priced at $14.99 along with someone else's H&M coat that was originally $60. It's off their hands and that's that.

The uniform pricing model keeps people walking in the door to see what great bargains they can find. Merchandise is removed from the racks if it's still there after four weeks - that week's colour coded end of the line stuff is discounted. It goes from the store to a warehouse where merchandise is sold by weight. Resellers trawl there too - profits are obv much higher.

Reselling is seen as an acceptable enterprise - people have a right to make money, and if they're willing to put in the work that reselling involves, why not?

YANBU, I’ve bought two coats brand new at Next and Uniqlo in the sale for £20 each. Very warm and stylish. I wouldn’t pay £20 for an unknown brand at a charity shop, it would need to be that Canadian goose or whatever.

I'm not sure it was an unknown brand so much as a brand OP didn't know.

If it's an acceptable ENTERPRISE to re-sell (I don't think it is, but that's just my opinion), then the people doing it shouldn't complain if the source of their stock decide to raise prices to reflect their contribution to the supply chain🤷🏼‍♀️.

But it's right there in front of you, so it's not a roll of the dice. Just don't buy if you don't want to risk the stain not coming out.
But you absolutely can return to charity shops. I returned a chess set this morning in fact (2 missing bits, useless). I promise they don't mind.

I bought a winter a coat a couple of years ago at a charity shop for £15, a weatherproof one that's so comfy. I usually use things for many years so feel it was a real bargain, as I'd been looking at similar things for around £60+. I don't think it's expensive if you could buy something in Primark for a similar price, I'm guessing at that price it was probably a good brand.

I don’t know where to start with unpicking this load of bollocks.

I lived in the US for years and goodwill stores do NOT have uniform pricing. Designer and other high value stuff are picked out and priced differently, or sometimes sold online for higher prices.

However in almost all other ways they are very different from UK charity shops:

1. US goodwill stores are enormous, built on cheap land, often in dodgy areas out of town. They can get away with giving space to very low quality inventory sold for pennies because their fixed costs are much lower than UK charity shops.

2. US goodwill stores have very different aims to UK charities - they do not exist to generate funds specifically for medical research or children’s hospices or animal rescue. People thus often donate for different reasons.

3. one of those reasons is that there are very different tax incentives for donors and the store in the US v UK. In the US the store has no tax incentive to maximise selling price, while the donor can deduct 100% of the sale price from their taxes. That encourages people to donate even if they don’t care about charitable causes. In the UK, charities can claim an extra 25% on the selling price but donors only can only claim up to 20%, which lessens their financial incentive to donate, and potentially increases the relative attractiveness of selling on Vinted.

You're not the charity. The charity is the one that's making the money from the coat. I've found until recently most charity shops under-price their stock.

I guess they got fed up of watching YouTube and TikTok and seeing people making massive profits from cheap charity shop items and realised their charity could actually benefit from it.

Extortionate! Oh my.

This is very worrying. Someone needs to reign these volunteers in, forcing people into shops and making them buy things. As my mum used to say: Whatever next?

Goodwill is not a charity. It is a social enterprise which is totally different.