I knew a local hospice charity shop. The manager took all the antquies and collectables. Sold them via Facebook for her own benefit. Most items of value go out the back door. Not to mention the wages of head CEOs and head office staff of the big charities.
Gosh. Yes, we all know about the top boss wages. But I thought they had valuers at head office to value anything they think might be valuable? Then it gets auctioned off, and it goes nowhere near the charity shop, which shops mostly sell tat to the public. But your hospice charity manager is shocking! (Most people tend to trust their local hospice charity.) I genuinely hope that this acquaintance of yours was done for embezzlement..
What a ridiculous comment . The volunteers and I don't take anything " out the back door" because of one scummy person you know you are tarring 100000s of volunteers and staff with the same brush. By law companies need a ceo , you find a ceo that will " volunteer." Instead of slagging off the charity sector, why not ask the government why we need charties to fund medical research or hospice care or homelessness...
Hearsay and nonsense, There are crooks everywhere but I have worked in the sector for over 20 years and happens very rarely. Not sure how goods stolen from a charity go to the wages of the CEO
I make a living buying stuff from charity shops/auctions. I always pay the asking price. A couple of weeks ago I found a piece of Lalique glass for £1 that’s worth around £500. I have no moral dilemma at all. I’ve been doing this for several years and have spent many thousands of pounds in charity shops in that time and I’m one of this particular shops best customers.
Is it morally wrong to charge really high prices to the people of the community for things that were donated free from the people in that same community
In the USA there's a national chain of "charity" stores that are managed regionally and often run like a for-profit business. They're notorious for overpricing things, and taking anything of value OUT of the stores so the very people they allege they're helping (hah! not around here they don't!) can't have access or afford them. They do it in the name of raising funds. I'd love to know where those funds go. Instead of their real name I call them Ill Will, and they keep earning it.
Not in govan mate, Magpies nest is amazing, and the charity shop were i now live in comrie is called the Harrods off the north but it's cheap as chips. Amazing stuff sometimes in it. Like as 1960 radio stereo player,Those long ones you used to see. Cost £5 I was offered from another chef £250. It stays with me. Barbados and the like are just a scam and are taking the piss..✌️
Why? Surely the people donating are wishing that their donation provides maximum benefit to the charity. Otherwise they might as well leave their donations on their drives or give them away on social media.
Charity shops need to make as much money as possible to pay their top bosses the half a million pound wages and the rent on their massive offices in London at over £1 million a year
I used to go in one particular charity shop quite a lot to spend my lunch hour , hardly eve bought anything because the prices were unbelievable. One day I saw a pair of boxed fluffy cat ears (something to do with brainwaves apparently!) after looking them up on eBay. I paid £15 for them and sold them within 6 hours for £100. I was over the moon because I finally got a bargain. Guilt? None whatsoever.
Not many people feeling guilty for taking the profits ! Myself, I live in Australia and last year I bought a brown jug in a Charity shop and Paid the asking price of $15. I did quite a lot of research and it turned out to be from around 1832 , and it turned out to be made in Australia and I sold it at Auction for $2950, Zero guilt felt.
If you pick up an item at a car boot that turns out to be worth a lot you wouldn’t be expected to split the profit with the seller! The fact it is a charity shop shouldn’t make a difference. The person who donated it obviously didn’t know the value either! So fair play to the finder!
Yes, very good point. Should we also compensate the donator who also didn't know the value? Obviously not. So the Charity also shouldn't be compensated
My main point about shopping in a charity shop is that if everything was checked by experts and given a true,realistic value then you’d lose the attraction of going into a charity shop in the first place,I honestly think it would be more counterproductive in the long run for the charity🤔
A good point but an "expert" is not an expert on everything and things would still slip through, a Roman coin expert is going to know nothing on Taylor Swift early pressings
I read articles a number of years ago though, saying that THAT was just what the major charities in the UK were doing! And journalists were saying that you couldn't get bargains any more...
I recently found an antique Victorian parlor chair in a thrift shop near my home for $2.00, ( I live in Essex, Connecticut).I explained to the manager that it was no doubt worth much more; she was indifferent and told that she was pleased that I was getting a great price. I later did a Google Lens search, ( which they could have done); it is circa 1850, and is worth $350.00. I did make a donation to the shop, and the chair looks lovely in my living room.
That's what I'd do, if it's a charity shop you just make a donation from the profit but you don't need to give the entire profit back, it's up to individuals to do their own research if they're too lazy or unbothered to do it then that's their tough luck.
Yes 100%!! If you have done the work and research then the profit is yours! 👍🏻 Charities are one of the biggest scams going! Charity CEO’s get paid up to 500k per year!!
A few years ago, I was passing my local Children’s Society charity shop when I noticed a high-quality pigskin suitcase left outside the front door. Thinking it had been donated, I took it inside to the lady at the counter (someone I know well). She told me it had been donated full of books, the books were now in stock, and the case was surplus to requirements and had been put out for the bin men. I offered to buy it, but she said I could take it if I wanted it. I ended up selling it for well over £200 on eBay. After covering the fees, I donated half of the profit to the charity shop and kept the rest for myself. She was happy with the outcome, and so was I
Definitely, if you're making a profit from the charity shop then you swing them a few quid. Otherwise you tail the lot. Kudos for giving half. I'd be £50 depending if I'm skint or not. 😁✌️
Charity shop prices have become ridiculous. Gone are the days when people on a tight budget could clothe themselves from charity shops without having to worry too much. I finally realised how bad they'd become when I saw a customer turned away because he was 40 pence short of the price of a pushchair. The person who donated that pushchair would almost certainly have been horrified. They get the items for free and decide what they are going to charge for them. If they get it wrong, tough luck.
A lot of charity shops all over the country take things in for free then put extortionate prices on them so that people who need them cannot afford them, especially clothes and shoes. I visit shops all the time and over the years since the explosion of eBay most shops have a group of people in the back room going through items that have been donated and keeping the most valuable items back to sell to themselves. I have also seen instances where I’ve spotted some decent books or DVDs that are sitting behind a counter or curtain and have been told that they have a deal with a certain person to take those away, so the best stuff goes to eBay companies. Some charity shops even have a deal with World of Books or Magpie to take their media and books. It’s not isolated, it’s a majority of the shops. As other people have said…… too much of the money is paid to the CEO and board usually in the millions and the managers of these shops are taking around £40k a year so stuff them. Charity shops are unregulated and not what they used to be, they should serve the community and the charity not line the pockets of the staff.
Let's consider books sold in charity shops, often in shops dedicated to that purpose. It is a truism of the secondhand book trade that 99% of all books will never be worth more than they were on the day of their publication. Thus a basic 1970s paperback would have retailed for about 25pence, though in today's charity bookshops everything basically starts at about £1.99 upwards. So is it because the book is covered in tea stains from being used as a coaster that has increased its value eightfold? Or maybe the yellowing, brittle and torn pages? Or the scribblings? Or the jam and other assorted breakfast stains? These are genuinely books worth only 5p or 10p but still they are marketed by the charity shops for that minimum £1.99. Condition, which should be the determining factor, becomes an irrelevancy. Or to take a different example, on more than one occasion I have heard elderly customers in my local Oxfam bookshop complaining (oh so rightly) that the Mills & Boon titles in the charity shop are more expensive than the brand new equivalents in the local Waterstones and Smiths. (I haven't verified this but see no reason to doubt it!) On other occasions I have seen more collectible items priced at correspondingly higher values (which is perfectly fair and to be expected), usually with shop staff seeing what copies on ABE sell for and using this as a guideline, but then ignoring factors such as their copy of the book having had all the illustrations removed, when it was the popularity of the illustrator that generated the collectibility and hence value in the first place. So the answer to the question in your title is an emphatic "no".
This is interesting, I worked in a Charity Shop for 12 years. I’d say 70% of shoppers were buying to resell anywhere from Vinted to Auctions. As long as we got what we asked for it we were happy. Antiques wise it’s REALLY hard to get someone to independently value pieces. Dealers say they’ll help but every single one only did it for their own gain. We couldn’t find anyone reliable not to under estimate, under value, try to snap it up before anyone else saw it. Paid or not they were sharks. We used Google lens on every piece in the end and just hoped we were doing the donator justice in getting the true value for our charity.
I saw a pair of broken baby shoes being sold for £5 in a charity shop the other day, I remember when charity shops were there to raise money AND help the poorer people of the community…it seems to only work one way these days
It is completely OK. I do it regularly. If you buy something for a quid and sell it for a hundred, keep £50 and then go back to the same charity shop and spend £50 in the shop on more stuff to resell. Then when you make money off those items go back and spend half again. Keep it going that way and the shop will make more money that they normally would do.
If your already rich and find a bargain that makes big profit then i would probably donate to a charity rather than a charity shop as many shops overcharge in the pursuit of profit .They were supposed to benefit the poorer in society but now often over price items placing profit before peoples needs.
They say the 'can't afford' an expert, yet strangely they can usually afford to pay the CEO hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum, and sometimes an additional hospitality/travel fund. They get most or all their stock for free, and expect their staff to work for free. So forget the charity, the company; but what about the target of the charity? If it was, say, the RSPCA and you feel for the suffering of animals, you might then wish to hand over any profit earned from the gold.
I went in a charity shop and their was a primark jacket up for sale for 20 pounds. A few days later I was in primark and the same jacket was 18 pounds. They are making hundreds of pounds a day some of them
I resell part-time and work full time. One of my sourcing methods is charity shops. If I’m buying from the shop where it is available to everyone I pay what the charity charges, if I’m going into the back room and get first dibs etc, I will pay up. I volunteer occasionally at a local hospice charity ( no big ceo or office buildings), I help sort out their stock and pull out stuff I’d like (and pay up on it) but I’ve also pulled out thousands in items for them to sell that I don’t want (e.g. types of items I don’t sell). They know I make money on it but are happy that I pay them back with my knowledge and paying up on anything special. I don’t think people understand the scale of items charity shops, even some smaller charities get per week, it’s in the thousands. I don’t have to pay up, but I like helping a local service. For bigger charities, most I know hire people with expertise or they train their shop managers to put things aside which can then be checked over properly. However, if they can also afford central London offices and multiple executive staff on 100k+ salaries, I don’t feel so bad for them. I encourage people to look into the financial breakdown for charities to see how much ends up helping people.
@@MF-zh4ig I'm a full time reseller and I personally don't agree with resellers working at a charity and buying for themselves before it hits the shop floor. That is a conflict of interest for me.
@ I understand your point but at least for the charity I volunteer for, I’ve discussed this with managers of the charity and they’ve said that the majority of their consistent revenue comes from dealers that they have relationships with. I also know some of the managers will pick things for themselves that they want to buy before it goes on the shop floor. As mentioned, I pay up on items from them that haven’t hit the shop floor and in return I provide my knowledge to them and help them price up better quality items. This has resulted over the time I’ve volunteered for them in thousands of pounds of additional revenue. Depending on the location, they’ve also said that dealers will sometimes pay more than what it would be on the shop floor and they can sell things off in bulk. They’ve also said that the return rate from dealers is much lower. You also have to consider space, charities get so many items that they need to ideally move stock on quickly as they don’t have space for it all. They’re fully aware as mentioned that I am buying to make a profit.
Some of the national high profile charities aren't very charitable themselves. They show a face to the public that their workers are all volunteers, but what they don't say is that their CEO'S receive hundreds of thousands of pounds EVERY year from public donations for doing very little. Why can't they be voluntary like everyone else in the charity? Simply because as far as the ceo's bank balance is concerned its a business, NOT a charity. In this instance I would keep every penny without an ounce of guilt. If it was a small local shop for a hospice for instance that's struggling for funds I'd at least give them 50% if not more. Also if someone buys an item at a charity shop when the item was known to be worthless, kept it for decades and then sold it when it was worth a mega amount, should there be any guilt attached then or is the length of time immaterial?
I worked for a local charity in one of their shops. Anything of value was appraised and sold, if in the shop for around 75% of its eBay value. Precious metals for above scrap and we had an eBay account. You would be amazed at the amount of flippers coming in and berating us because the first edition book selling on eBay for £48 is on sale for £35 as”I can’t buy it and make a profit”
the thing about charity shops these days is they know what's valuable and what's not because they check things and price accordingly i have always believed that people buying from the charity shop are also in need of charity and if you can squeeze a profit out of something when you need it you should be able too its not immoral to survive and make a living, i think anyone who sees it as morally wrong probably has never struggled in life.
Like yourself and many others I have given up my time for charities. Unfortunately charity has become big business and some have lost sight of what they were set up for and are run by CEOs on five, six and even seven figure salaries. I think your argument that charities should employ experts is a good call and they should take your advice. Personally if I made a large profit then I would make a donation back to the charity say ten percent but I don't blame anyone for not doing so.
I prefer the middle ground, the person who bought the item did not know if it was real or plastic, but spent time and possibly some money to get it appressed then it took time and money to sell it on ebay her good fortune. While it would be nice to share her good fortune with the charity she bought it from by making a donation. We should also consider if the item was junk she would have made nothing but would have been left with a worthless purchase, which equates to risk versus reward, if you take the risk you deserve a reward.
Great discussion, and of course there is no definitive answer. I go to charity shops a lot, and my main motivation is to find a bargain. When i go, i see a lot of people like me. So loads of people are doing exactly the same. And yes, i have found bargains. And yes, i have pocketed the profit on the rare occasions i have sold them. Although, my profit has been relatively small compared to the video example. But the desire for profit takes me many many charity shops. What does happen is i buy a lot of other stuff on my visits, and i donate a lot of stuff. So i don't feel bad about my small profits. If i made a big profit, on the scale of the video, i believe i would donate a percentage back. But i dont begrudge those that dont; but i admire those that donate it all back. Each to their own.
Cost of living is so high ordinary people are struggling big time, so unless the charity shop customer is wealthy, its still helping someone out a lot if this kind of thing happens.
Where I live we have a few charity shops. Would think after rents, electricity, rates etc there is no way that they could survive by giving donations made to them away. On top of that if they disappeared they would be missed by the people that use them. A lot of those people are not financially well off. It is a bit of a vicious circle - they have to charge in order to survive, and to finance the charities that they represent.
Interesting point David..I collect old cigarette cards/tea cards etc..I bought a set online from a well-known charity for £3.50 which was about right for this set.It was issued in 1966 and was then reprinted with a different colour reverse in 1974.Oddly enough, the reprinted set is worth a lot more than the original (tiny print run).There were no pictures of the reverse so I took a punt.My suspicions were confirmed and I sold this set for £110.00..For a brief moment I was faced with a moral dilemma but quickly dismissed it as the charity was one of the largest in the country and I knew they had 'experts' going through the stuff..I kept the money but if I'd bought them at a small local charity shop dealing with local causes , my reaction may have been different
Finds like this are a great source of advertising for charity shops. How many of us shop in these places solely looking for these scores because we hear stories such as this one?
Some of the C.E.O's at the top of some charities are now on salaries of £400,000 - I think THAT is immoral and it is why the charity shops now charge ridiculous prices for items that you can often buy new... but cheaper (like stuff from Primark or Poundland) so in my opinion - if I pick something up and make a big profit -good for me and I will not be giving that money back to the charity shop where I bought the item cheaply. They can't expect to have it both ways...by the way this is no reflection on the volunteers in these shops who are great.IMO
I have bought 1000s of Euros worth of gold from thrift shops and flea markets. It is NOT the responsibility of the buyer to educate the seller, regardless of where the item was purchased. You bought the item fair and square. Zero guilt.
Aussie op-shopper here. Let's be honest, all of us (charity shops included) have the knowledge of the internet in our pocket to easily assess what something might be worth. Personally, I have found more "corporate" charity shops charge more across the board (which I think is greedy given stock is donated) so have no problem exploiting their occasional lack of due dillegence. However with smaller "local" or "independent" shops I will pay a little more above the ticket for a "bargain" or let them know if I think they are selling something too cheap. I also find these smaller local shops are far more "personable" and friendlier to deal with so you don't mind spending a little more. I think it also depends a lot on why you visit charity shops. For me it's simply the thrill of the chase. finding a quirky piece for home or the story/history of any given bargain. I can't really be bothered with the faff around "reselling", but to tell people about the "Prada" bag my daughter found for a fiver makes it all the more fun
Good question! In thirty years I've rarely found anything of antique value in a charity shop. On those couple of occasions I've bought a paperback from the shop at a later date, paid with a note and asked them to keep the change. It's yin and yang really; if you don't buy it someone else will, and every chance they won't do the 'decent' thing.
Hello David, I would keep it based on my experiences, I 💯 pc with no guilt attached. as the directors of there so called "charity shops " are of mega bucks, its called a "charity" shop for a reason, kind people donate, and we are good samaratins to shop there. We all want a bargain, and why not, so good luck to the lady for spotting it, the shop will not lose out as they are always very much in profit. KEEP IT is my answer .
I often find old treasures in charity shops or antique fairs A few months ago I found an old heavy sterling snake bangle at our local charity shop priced at £5 trying to to the right thing I told the manager it was valuable when I went in again two weeks later it was still there at £5! So I bought it
I give advice for free to a near by heart foundation shop when they are stuck with identifying and valuing vintage toys, but to be be fair they are pretty hot on checking everything and valuing it, so I’m surprised this charity shop missed this item. I’ve also bought things from charity shops for my toy museum, that I have later flipped. But this was years apart, and all the donations from the museum go to charity. So I hadn’t thought much about it until watching your video. Food for thought.
People mostly go to Charity Shops for a bargain. The treasure hunt. To hire someone to price everything to online prices would mean no one would bother going in. The shops would close, and charities would sell online only and thus would have to hire ebay listers
I know some Charities do have experts who look at objects, I suppose it might depend on the volunteers picking pieces out for valuation. I once found an envelope with quite a bit of cash in it tucked into a book. I contacted the charity shop and was really surprised to be told there was no way of finding out who had donated it, even though there was some writing on the envelope and that they had no process to take the money. I gave them a donation and kept the rest 🤷♀️
A new charity shop opened 15 years ago. The manager didn't know about true prices. In those days there was no Google to cross price check. I bought a lovely antique large oil painting for £10 I hung it in my house and it looks lovely above the fireplace. It's worth £400 from Google pricing. I believe if a buyer keeps the object for pleasure then the difference in value is 'what it is' and no money should be given to the charity.
NO! they got it for nothing, you paid the price that was asked, and most of the money from a charity goes to wages rent and CEO wages. its worth giving them a donation. i read a few years ago a bunch of oxfam workers went haiti for a natural disaster but ended up abusing people
I sell on ebay here In Australia, it is not for fun it is a business. It is no different from high St retailers buying cheap and adding a mark up. However, I do go back every now and then and make a donation. I also help them if they need help identifying things, so for me it is a win, win situation. Make sure you build a relationship with local charity shop (or Op Shop over here in Australia).
No it’s fine. Business is business and most charity shops near me check what the items are worth and they sell them at a very high price also the charity shop is by appointment only.. it’s in Cheshire so that says it all. If the shop didn’t due diligence and check the items value then so be it. Most items on the antique road show are charity shop find an they don’t give it back they go on their jolly’s
my wife was a volunteer in a local Hospice charity shop, she sold a man a pair of ladies shoes (at asking price) following week he came back and said he had sold them (some kind of designer shoes) for £300 and he donated £100 back to the charity. RUclips is full of videos of "resellers" UK & USA and charities are aware therefore prices have shot up and most have their own ebay store. Initially back in the day charity shops were used by lower income people as a cheaper source of clothing/ shoes etc Not Now prices are higher than high street stores Sale items.
If somebody donates something that turns out to be worth a lot of money, slim chance the charity shop would give some of it back to the donator (they could track down through gift aid or attempt to find through social media posts etc...)
Charity shops take huge profits, it costs them £0, rates on shop are reduced, free staff etc. most eBay better stuff to squeeze even more out of it. Well done finding anything in them, most stuff worth a lot less than what they ask. Also they start at a silly high price then reduce it over the next month until somebody falls for it. I had an antique shop, if I used that method I wouldn’t have any customers as they would think I was immoral and greedy.
I've worked in a charity shop (we call them "op" shops here in Australia) and because it was not a wealthy area, jewellery rarely arrived. I've often thought that some shops in wealthier areas could be missing out if valuable items were donated. Yes, having an expert's opinion could really be useful.
P.S. Also, the charity AKA thrift shops in the United States are outrageously priced You're paying new clothing prices in some case which would be the same as a quality department store... so my answer is not. I have an entire string videos I've done on items I've gotten for almost nothing and sold for amazing profit. It took work to get there. Leslie, our charity shops AKA thrift shops in United States The big ones which are the major ones people go to have CEOs that receive millions and bonuses free houses etc so the majority of what you donate to them is simply turned into cash a board of directors deals happily with the free money profit. If it is a community based charity and you can easily research and figure that out then we have given a portion of cash or goods we donated to the organization. However, I would not give anything back to salvation army, Savers, Goodwill and a few others that are giant national or regional "charities".
Savers is unabashedly for-profit. They 'give' a percentage, about 10%, to a charity, but they're chasing $$$. Goodwill does the same while pretending to be nonprofit and help people. Some regions actually do, but around here all they do is pay the CEO a fat paycheck. The only thing I usually find worth buying in there is Target holiday candy, and you have to watch pricetags on that too because their markdown is often more than after-CHristmas price at RETAIL. Aww heck no. 100% of my in-kind donations go to small local charities.
I personally would donate back 50 % of the profit especially if it were a large profit but only if it was a small independent shop and not the big bent ones
I found an unpriced, so it wasn't really for sale yet, piece of real campaign furniture in my local Restore last year. It was a chest that had front latches, recessed fold-out brass handles, and recessed side handles to pick up and move three separate pieces. Having no personal use for it, I told the manager exactly what it was, besides old as the dickens. I didn't tell him a value, not knowing myself especially since it was out of market. That piece probably saw service in India and fetched up in Connecticut. Fortunately for them the manager listened and took it off of the floor for more research. Some antique dealer is probably cursing my name out there, but Habitat for Humanity put up a piece of someone's house for the price of that chest.
The charity shops should be sharper on assessing the value of items, They can use the internet , like anyone else can. When I ran an Antiques centre, I used to offer that service to several shops foc. If you have a result and make a large profit, then give a donation. You could argue that when people do the hard work they deserve the profit. You don't have to be in either camp. What is immoral, is selling something with high intrinsic value that cost you £3 on Ebay, with a reserve.
Many charity shops have deals with antique dealers who are offered cherry picked items before they appear in the shop. That's fair. If high value items are missed then it's also perfectly fair for anyone to buy at the price offered. I paid 6 pounds for a Satsuma vase that I later sold for 50. That's just as fair as the dealer profiting from their deal with the shop. I see no problem in these transactions.
Charities are a business and should act as such. If the senior exec team cannot make a positive business case for better value vetting of their assets they are letting down their donors and the endpoints of the charity and should be removed from office without any recompense. How long would any other business execs last if they constantly undervalued their product values and undersold them to the level charities undersell. As I understand it charities employ "top" level execs so they can be run as a business and increase the profit lines but the bottom line of the asset valuation is totally ignored in most cases by not seeking out increased revenues from online selling opportunities. Outrageous in my opinion. IMO buying from a charity and making profit is no different from buying from any other seller that chooses to undervalue their assets. They are the seller and set the price, it is their decision.
My friend is a dealer in collectables he and many more friends of his buy from charity shops to make a profit, now the charity shops get the money they ask for and the dealers get a profit themselves, a lot of charity shops sell online anyway, he has made some nice profits over the years and he never gives extra money back to the shops because he feels he would be then asked every time hes in the shops for extra donations etc etc, i agree with him 100% its up to the charity shops to make sure themselves they are not selling items to cheaply its as simple as that
I think it becomes a moral issue when you cheat someone out of what is rightfully theirs. This doesn't seem to fit that category. Isn't the premise of Antique Road Trip, Bargain Hunt, etc just that?...find the sleeper that has not been discovered and make a profit. It seems that having everything appraised in a thrift shop before sales, would defeat the purpose of going out and finding that treasure. Giving back to the charity after making a great profit seems to me to be between a person and their conscience. When I buy used jewelry lots in bulk, I don't ask the sellers to check every piece to make sure I'm not getting any gold or silver for such a low price...I look for the lots that are decribed as "untested and unsearched", and maybe I'll find that one piece that makes me a profit. 😀
The person who donated it didn't realise the value so it starts with them I sell on Vinted and people get annoyed when someone buys something and then resells it for a lot more. Once you bought something it's down to you what yo
If you paid the price they wanted, and it was a bargain, its your good fortune. Donate a little bit if they feel the need, but it is up to the employees/volunteers/management to research and price their items accordingly. Its many times a case where "knowledge is power". If you recognize an item as being a bargain, and it is priced at a figure you are happy to pay, no matter how low, you are making money from your knowledge. You earned that knowledge, so you should benefit at some point. However, if you are there under the guise that you are to make a fair offer, it is a different situation. Then you make a fair offer based on your knowledge and your end market. It should be noted that not all "charities" are created equal....they are inefficient at times, and so many charities spend 80% or more of the received funds on internal employees, administration, etc, rather than the intended end recipients.
Running a reclaimed and antique shop is expensive… most of are prices are cheaper than charity shops… and they still Seem to get by charging new shop prices… All there stuff goes to the council bin if doesn’t sell with in the month…. Remember that one.
If you were to make a massive profit then donate whatever amount makes you comfortable back to charity? I am fine with keeping it all also. Something you don’t hear much of are the people ‘working’ in the charity shops who occasionally find items handed in that are worth a small fortune yet they never make the shelve for whatever ‘reason’… theft from charity from within! The fact I know of two cases local to me means it must happen all over the world. One, a guy I used to work with helped out at a charity shop and noticed a rare book that had just been sorted through….he gave them the £2 they wanted for it, fully aware what it was and sold it for £1900
The gift aid letters I've received for the value of sales of my donations to charity shops balance out any bargains I've found. As long as you're giving as well as taking then it's fine. There are many far more morally dubious financial arrangements to take aim at than someone who has a bit of luck in a charity shop. On the subject of hiring experts, who do you hire? My local auction centre can't tell it's glass from it's elbow, and one of these days I will go round an antique centre with a marker penand relabel every piece of Chinese glass described as Murano. In the many glass identification Facebook groups I'm a member of, we often have charity shop staff sharing glass they've received for an id, and most of the time they get one. Perhaps a better approach is for charities to identify the groups of expertise out there willing to help for free and provide a list to shop managers as a resource
If the person who gave it to the charity shop was unaware of the value then its their fault for not checking. Then if the charity sell it without checks - then tough
Arbitrage is a legal, and legitimate process - if you profit you are in business: this is how the world works. If people fail to recognize the value of items that is down to them.
What would you do if it is a valuable item that you want to keep? You wouldnt be selling it on and getting money for it yourself but should you give the charity its value?
For me the crux of the matter is if your client knew the value of the object. Is she an expert who saw immediately the value, or an amateur who liked the object and thought that maybe there was value in it? For me personally, there is a huge difference between the two. If she is an amateur, then good luck to her and she should keep her gain.
All well and good when charity shops have ceos but some are small charities. I chose 2 rings for 50p each out of a pot of similar rings and when i got them home found them they had hallmarks and were citrine and amethyst. I phoned the hospice charity shop and told them to check the others and more of them had hallmarks. They told me not to worry about the 2 I had and thanked me for letting them know.
I knew one lady who was in charge of a charity shop and she was well into jewellery so she always had first look and some item never reached the shop floor to sell.
Sorry, if the charity shop missed the value in that piece…it is not the buyers fault if it is of higher value. If it made me feel guilty, then that is on me…and, I can then make the choice to pay it forward, or keep it to myself. I do not feel that I would owe the shop that sold it to me anything.
I'd go in and buy more from the charity shop. I've bought things for a couple of quid that turned out to be worth £50 and occasionally higher. But then I've also bought things for a couple of quid that were worth a couple of quid. I frequently buy things from boot sales that are worth 10 or 20x the price paid, I don't share profit with the seller. But I do buy more from them in future.
Called op shops here in Australia which stands for opportunity. They were created to give the opportunity for the poor people to have nice stuff. But here in Australia they are just big business these days. in a lot of people's opinion. I mainly stick to the church thrift or charity shops. One shop sells everything for one or two dollars maximum. Sometimes you can pick up items worth, three or four hundred dollars easily. But these shops find out your r a reseller and they will chase you out as they dislike resellers. Back to the four main charities here who run shops, few years ago we had severe bushfires with people lost everything their houses all their clothing left with nothing. There was a big drive to raise funds for these victims. We all dug deep into our pockets raising over 50 million dollars for these families. The four major charities kept most of the money to use in other areas. A lot of Australians got very upset with these charities. Is there a setup to help poor people why are they selling certain clothing more expensive than on Ebay Don't forget that these big charities have CEOs on very big incomes. They go through all the stuff it's very rare that's like slip through these days. They actually sell on eBay and online sites.
Most charity shops here in Edinburgh have very high prices and know their stock well. If a seller doesn't know the value of their own stock there in lies a bargain and its fair game. Being fair is a matter for ones own consciousness.
I have donated to different charities all my life and worked in quite a few too, they must have made hundreds from my items as I’ve donated some lovely things. . But I have to say imo. If you pay the price for an item it’s then yours to do what you will with them. . Some of the charity shops I’ve volunteered in sometimes have a local person to check over items they aren’t sure of to help them out. 👍
I know many charity shops in the edinburgh area have valuers (dealers in many cases) who donate their time to looking over donated items and give advice.
These shops now Over charge for stuff - they check ebay listing prices (not solds) and most of them have there own ebay store that they keep all the "good" stuff to go on - so making it near impossible to find a bargain like you used to years ago !
@@Twelve50TV if something is in a charity shop and I find it on eBay at the same price I’d rather buy it from eBay, the person who is selling it no doubt paid for the item and I might be genuinely helping someone pay their bills instead of paying for a CEO’s wage
David, in my book, this is simple: not amoral. As an American, well traveled thru out UK, live in heart of Chicago, donate to a hospital charity shop, if I give away a valuable and the buyer is a shrewd soul; so be it. See you on The Road Trip?
I knew a local hospice charity shop. The manager took all the antquies and collectables. Sold them via Facebook for her own benefit. Most items of value go out the back door. Not to mention the wages of head CEOs and head office staff of the big charities.
Gosh. Yes, we all know about the top boss wages. But I thought they had valuers at head office to value anything they think might be valuable? Then it gets auctioned off, and it goes nowhere near the charity shop, which shops mostly sell tat to the public. But your hospice charity manager is shocking! (Most people tend to trust their local hospice charity.) I genuinely hope that this acquaintance of yours was done for embezzlement..
Agreed I knew and Area manager that forced shops to Overprice stuff he wanted then they had a rule of if it did not sell they get the goods.........
@Rednosty Wow..
What a ridiculous comment . The volunteers and I don't take anything " out the back door" because of one scummy person you know you are tarring 100000s of volunteers and staff with the same brush. By law companies need a ceo , you find a ceo that will " volunteer." Instead of slagging off the charity sector, why not ask the government why we need charties to fund medical research or hospice care or homelessness...
Hearsay and nonsense, There are crooks everywhere but I have worked in the sector for over 20 years and happens very rarely.
Not sure how goods stolen from a charity go to the wages of the CEO
As a charity shop volunteer I say good on you , you bought in good faith . There needs to be finds / bargains to keep people shopping
Not as immoral as the ridiculous salaries taken by charity management 😂
I make a living buying stuff from charity shops/auctions. I always pay the asking price. A couple of weeks ago I found a piece of Lalique glass for £1 that’s worth around £500. I have no moral dilemma at all. I’ve been doing this for several years and have spent many thousands of pounds in charity shops in that time and I’m one of this particular shops best customers.
💯👍
@@gavinjames1842 agree
Is it morally wrong to charge really high prices to the people of the community for things that were donated free from the people in that same community
In the USA there's a national chain of "charity" stores that are managed regionally and often run like a for-profit business. They're notorious for overpricing things, and taking anything of value OUT of the stores so the very people they allege they're helping (hah! not around here they don't!) can't have access or afford them. They do it in the name of raising funds. I'd love to know where those funds go. Instead of their real name I call them Ill Will, and they keep earning it.
Well said
Not in govan mate, Magpies nest is amazing, and the charity shop were i now live in comrie is called the Harrods off the north but it's cheap as chips. Amazing stuff sometimes in it. Like as 1960 radio stereo player,Those long ones you used to see. Cost £5 I was offered from another chef £250. It stays with me. Barbados and the like are just a scam and are taking the piss..✌️
Why? Surely the people donating are wishing that their donation provides maximum benefit to the charity. Otherwise they might as well leave their donations on their drives or give them away on social media.
Charity shops are there to make money for their cause not provide something for nothing to locals!
Charity shops need to make as much money as possible to pay their top bosses the half a million pound wages and the rent on their massive offices in London at over £1 million a year
💯👍
That’s like saying that it’s wrong for the manager who runs the charity shop to receive an income of £30,000+ from the generated profits.
I used to go in one particular charity shop quite a lot to spend my lunch hour , hardly eve bought anything because the prices were unbelievable. One day I saw a pair of boxed fluffy cat ears (something to do with brainwaves apparently!) after looking them up on eBay. I paid £15 for them and sold them within 6 hours for £100. I was over the moon because I finally got a bargain. Guilt? None whatsoever.
Boxed fluffy cat ears? Wow. 😂
@ something to do with neuroscience they are called necomimi sold them to an institute in Germany….very odd but still worth a £100 so :-)
@ab4mb Wow! 😯
Not many people feeling guilty for taking the profits ! Myself, I live in Australia and last year I bought a brown jug in a Charity shop and Paid the asking price of $15. I did quite a lot of research and it turned out to be from around 1832 , and it turned out to be made in Australia and I sold it at Auction for $2950, Zero guilt felt.
The knowledge making takes time and money, I don’t see the problem
If you pick up an item at a car boot that turns out to be worth a lot you wouldn’t be expected to split the profit with the seller! The fact it is a charity shop shouldn’t make a difference. The person who donated it obviously didn’t know the value either! So fair play to the finder!
Yes, very good point. Should we also compensate the donator who also didn't know the value? Obviously not. So the Charity also shouldn't be compensated
My main point about shopping in a charity shop is that if everything was checked by experts and given a true,realistic value then you’d lose the attraction of going into a charity shop in the first place,I honestly think it would be more counterproductive in the long run for the charity🤔
Agree with you.
A good point but an "expert" is not an expert on everything and things would still slip through, a Roman coin expert is going to know nothing on Taylor Swift early pressings
I read articles a number of years ago though, saying that THAT was just what the major charities in the UK were doing! And journalists were saying that you couldn't get bargains any more...
I recently found an antique Victorian parlor chair in a thrift shop near my home for $2.00, ( I live in Essex, Connecticut).I explained to the manager that it was no doubt worth much more; she was indifferent and told that she was pleased that I was getting a great price. I later did a Google Lens search, ( which they could have done); it is circa 1850, and is worth $350.00. I did make a donation to the shop, and the chair looks lovely in my living room.
That's what I'd do, if it's a charity shop you just make a donation from the profit but you don't need to give the entire profit back, it's up to individuals to do their own research if they're too lazy or unbothered to do it then that's their tough luck.
Wow!
Yes 100%!! If you have done the work and research then the profit is yours! 👍🏻
Charities are one of the biggest scams going! Charity CEO’s get paid up to 500k per year!!
🎯
@@dannywilcox8744 agree
This is the trouble.m
Hope you never need the help of your local hospice, or treatment for heart disease or cancer after all you wouldn't want to be scammed
@ are you thick?
If you donate £100, £15 goes to the people that actually need it!!
How isn’t that a scam…. 🤦🏻♂️
A few years ago, I was passing my local Children’s Society charity shop when I noticed a high-quality pigskin suitcase left outside the front door. Thinking it had been donated, I took it inside to the lady at the counter (someone I know well). She told me it had been donated full of books, the books were now in stock, and the case was surplus to requirements and had been put out for the bin men. I offered to buy it, but she said I could take it if I wanted it.
I ended up selling it for well over £200 on eBay. After covering the fees, I donated half of the profit to the charity shop and kept the rest for myself. She was happy with the outcome, and so was I
Definitely, if you're making a profit from the charity shop then you swing them a few quid. Otherwise you tail the lot. Kudos for giving half. I'd be £50 depending if I'm skint or not. 😁✌️
The bosses get the most money while the needy get nothing
Good for you!
Of course you did. Not
@davidDean-g5n Why not?
Charity shop prices have become ridiculous. Gone are the days when people on a tight budget could clothe themselves from charity shops without having to worry too much. I finally realised how bad they'd become when I saw a customer turned away because he was 40 pence short of the price of a pushchair. The person who donated that pushchair would almost certainly have been horrified. They get the items for free and decide what they are going to charge for them. If they get it wrong, tough luck.
keep it charity shops are raking it in from donations and charging almost as much as new prices for average stuff
A lot of charity shops all over the country take things in for free then put extortionate prices on them so that people who need them cannot afford them, especially clothes and shoes.
I visit shops all the time and over the years since the explosion of eBay most shops have a group of people in the back room going through items that have been donated and keeping the most valuable items back to sell to themselves. I have also seen instances where I’ve spotted some decent books or DVDs that are sitting behind a counter or curtain and have been told that they have a deal with a certain person to take those away, so the best stuff goes to eBay companies. Some charity shops even have a deal with World of Books or Magpie to take their media and books. It’s not isolated, it’s a majority of the shops.
As other people have said…… too much of the money is paid to the CEO and board usually in the millions and the managers of these shops are taking around £40k a year so stuff them. Charity shops are unregulated and not what they used to be, they should serve the community and the charity not line the pockets of the staff.
Let's consider books sold in charity shops, often in shops dedicated to that purpose. It is a truism of the secondhand book trade that 99% of all books will never be worth more than they were on the day of their publication. Thus a basic 1970s paperback would have retailed for about 25pence, though in today's charity bookshops everything basically starts at about £1.99 upwards. So is it because the book is covered in tea stains from being used as a coaster that has increased its value eightfold? Or maybe the yellowing, brittle and torn pages? Or the scribblings? Or the jam and other assorted breakfast stains? These are genuinely books worth only 5p or 10p but still they are marketed by the charity shops for that minimum £1.99. Condition, which should be the determining factor, becomes an irrelevancy.
Or to take a different example, on more than one occasion I have heard elderly customers in my local Oxfam bookshop complaining (oh so rightly) that the Mills & Boon titles in the charity shop are more expensive than the brand new equivalents in the local Waterstones and Smiths. (I haven't verified this but see no reason to doubt it!)
On other occasions I have seen more collectible items priced at correspondingly higher values (which is perfectly fair and to be expected), usually with shop staff seeing what copies on ABE sell for and using this as a guideline, but then ignoring factors such as their copy of the book having had all the illustrations removed, when it was the popularity of the illustrator that generated the collectibility and hence value in the first place.
So the answer to the question in your title is an emphatic "no".
A friend of mine bought a chest of drawers from a charity shop for £250. Sold it at an auction for £6,000.
Good for them..
This is interesting, I worked in a Charity Shop for 12 years. I’d say 70% of shoppers were buying to resell anywhere from Vinted to Auctions. As long as we got what we asked for it we were happy. Antiques wise it’s REALLY hard to get someone to independently value pieces. Dealers say they’ll help but every single one only did it for their own gain. We couldn’t find anyone reliable not to under estimate, under value, try to snap it up before anyone else saw it. Paid or not they were sharks. We used Google lens on every piece in the end and just hoped we were doing the donator justice in getting the true value for our charity.
There will always be winners and losers. What about when the charity shops charge more than the item cost new.
Indeed. I often think that some volunteers pricing up only ever buy clothes in M&S and price Primark items higher than Primark!
I saw a pair of broken baby shoes being sold for £5 in a charity shop the other day, I remember when charity shops were there to raise money AND help the poorer people of the community…it seems to only work one way these days
It is completely OK. I do it regularly. If you buy something for a quid and sell it for a hundred, keep £50 and then go back to the same charity shop and spend £50 in the shop on more stuff to resell. Then when you make money off those items go back and spend half again. Keep it going that way and the shop will make more money that they normally would do.
no way.finders keepers!This is the charity work.selling things they get for free to people that got an eye for things
I wouldn't mind if the people needing the charity actually got the money .
If your already rich and find a bargain that makes big profit then i would probably donate to a charity rather than a charity shop as many shops overcharge in the pursuit of profit .They were supposed to benefit the poorer in society but now often over price items placing profit before peoples needs.
Charities are just tax free businesses. The National Trust is a charity. Enough said.
They say the 'can't afford' an expert, yet strangely they can usually afford to pay the CEO hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum, and sometimes an additional hospitality/travel fund. They get most or all their stock for free, and expect their staff to work for free. So forget the charity, the company; but what about the target of the charity? If it was, say, the RSPCA and you feel for the suffering of animals, you might then wish to hand over any profit earned from the gold.
I went in a charity shop and their was a primark jacket up for sale for 20 pounds. A few days later I was in primark and the same jacket was 18 pounds. They are making hundreds of pounds a day some of them
I resell part-time and work full time. One of my sourcing methods is charity shops. If I’m buying from the shop where it is available to everyone I pay what the charity charges, if I’m going into the back room and get first dibs etc, I will pay up.
I volunteer occasionally at a local hospice charity ( no big ceo or office buildings), I help sort out their stock and pull out stuff I’d like (and pay up on it) but I’ve also pulled out thousands in items for them to sell that I don’t want (e.g. types of items I don’t sell).
They know I make money on it but are happy that I pay them back with my knowledge and paying up on anything special.
I don’t think people understand the scale of items charity shops, even some smaller charities get per week, it’s in the thousands.
I don’t have to pay up, but I like helping a local service. For bigger charities, most I know hire people with expertise or they train their shop managers to put things aside which can then be checked over properly. However, if they can also afford central London offices and multiple executive staff on 100k+ salaries, I don’t feel so bad for them. I encourage people to look into the financial breakdown for charities to see how much ends up helping people.
@@MF-zh4ig I'm a full time reseller and I personally don't agree with resellers working at a charity and buying for themselves before it hits the shop floor. That is a conflict of interest for me.
@ I understand your point but at least for the charity I volunteer for, I’ve discussed this with managers of the charity and they’ve said that the majority of their consistent revenue comes from dealers that they have relationships with. I also know some of the managers will pick things for themselves that they want to buy before it goes on the shop floor. As mentioned, I pay up on items from them that haven’t hit the shop floor and in return I provide my knowledge to them and help them price up better quality items. This has resulted over the time I’ve volunteered for them in thousands of pounds of additional revenue.
Depending on the location, they’ve also said that dealers will sometimes pay more than what it would be on the shop floor and they can sell things off in bulk. They’ve also said that the return rate from dealers is much lower.
You also have to consider space, charities get so many items that they need to ideally move stock on quickly as they don’t have space for it all. They’re fully aware as mentioned that I am buying to make a profit.
Some of the national high profile charities aren't very charitable themselves. They show a face to the public that their workers are all volunteers, but what they don't say is that their CEO'S receive hundreds of thousands of pounds EVERY year from public donations for doing very little. Why can't they be voluntary like everyone else in the charity? Simply because as far as the ceo's bank balance is concerned its a business, NOT a charity. In this instance I would keep every penny without an ounce of guilt. If it was a small local shop for a hospice for instance that's struggling for funds I'd at least give them 50% if not more. Also if someone buys an item at a charity shop when the item was known to be worthless, kept it for decades and then sold it when it was worth a mega amount, should there be any guilt attached then or is the length of time immaterial?
Was going to write exactly this. Totally agree.
I worked for a local charity in one of their shops. Anything of value was appraised and sold, if in the shop for around 75% of its eBay value. Precious metals for above scrap and we had an eBay account. You would be amazed at the amount of flippers coming in and berating us because the first edition book selling on eBay for £48 is on sale for £35 as”I can’t buy it and make a profit”
the thing about charity shops these days is they know what's valuable and what's not because they check things and price accordingly i have always believed that people buying from the charity shop are also in need of charity and if you can squeeze a profit out of something when you need it you should be able too its not immoral to survive and make a living, i think anyone who sees it as morally wrong probably has never struggled in life.
Like yourself and many others I have given up my time for charities. Unfortunately charity has become big business and some have lost sight of what they were set up for and are run by CEOs on five, six and even seven figure salaries. I think your argument that charities should employ experts is a good call and they should take your advice. Personally if I made a large profit then I would make a donation back to the charity say ten percent but I don't blame anyone for not doing so.
I prefer the middle ground, the person who bought the item did not know if it was real or plastic, but spent time and possibly some money to get it appressed then it took time and money to sell it on ebay her good fortune. While it would be nice to share her good fortune with the charity she bought it from by making a donation. We should also consider if the item was junk she would have made nothing but would have been left with a worthless purchase, which equates to risk versus reward, if you take the risk you deserve a reward.
In a word.
No.
You should see what the charity shops throw straight in the bin. Youd be amazed.
Great discussion, and of course there is no definitive answer. I go to charity shops a lot, and my main motivation is to find a bargain. When i go, i see a lot of people like me. So loads of people are doing exactly the same. And yes, i have found bargains. And yes, i have pocketed the profit on the rare occasions i have sold them. Although, my profit has been relatively small compared to the video example. But the desire for profit takes me many many charity shops. What does happen is i buy a lot of other stuff on my visits, and i donate a lot of stuff. So i don't feel bad about my small profits.
If i made a big profit, on the scale of the video, i believe i would donate a percentage back. But i dont begrudge those that dont; but i admire those that donate it all back. Each to their own.
No no no don't give money to charity. Charity's are businesses not charity anymore.
Cost of living is so high ordinary people are struggling big time, so unless the charity shop customer is wealthy, its still helping someone out a lot if this kind of thing happens.
Where I live we have a few charity shops. Would think after rents, electricity, rates etc there is no way that they could survive by giving donations made to them away. On top of that if they disappeared they would be missed by the people that use them. A lot of those people are not financially well off. It is a bit of a vicious circle - they have to charge in order to survive, and to finance the charities that they represent.
Interesting point David..I collect old cigarette cards/tea cards etc..I bought a set online from a well-known charity for £3.50 which was about right for this set.It was issued in 1966 and was then reprinted with a different colour reverse in 1974.Oddly enough, the reprinted set is worth a lot more than the original (tiny print run).There were no pictures of the reverse so I took a punt.My suspicions were confirmed and I sold this set for £110.00..For a brief moment I was faced with a moral dilemma but quickly dismissed it as the charity was one of the largest in the country and I knew they had 'experts' going through the stuff..I kept the money but if I'd bought them at a small local charity shop dealing with local causes , my reaction may have been different
Finds like this are a great source of advertising for charity shops. How many of us shop in these places solely looking for these scores because we hear stories such as this one?
Charity are business ..
As Mel Fisher would say Today's the Day ~ be a Pirate keep the money !!!
Some of the C.E.O's at the top of some charities are now on salaries of £400,000 - I think THAT is immoral and it is why the charity shops now charge ridiculous prices for items that you can often buy new... but cheaper (like stuff from Primark or Poundland) so in my opinion - if I pick something up and make a big profit -good for me and I will not be giving that money back to the charity shop where I bought the item cheaply. They can't expect to have it both ways...by the way this is no reflection on the volunteers in these shops who are great.IMO
I have bought 1000s of Euros worth of gold from thrift shops and flea markets. It is NOT the responsibility of the buyer to educate the seller, regardless of where the item was purchased. You bought the item fair and square. Zero guilt.
Aussie op-shopper here. Let's be honest, all of us (charity shops included) have the knowledge of the internet in our pocket to easily assess what something might be worth.
Personally, I have found more "corporate" charity shops charge more across the board (which I think is greedy given stock is donated) so have no problem exploiting their occasional lack of due dillegence.
However with smaller "local" or "independent" shops I will pay a little more above the ticket for a "bargain" or let them know if I think they are selling something too cheap.
I also find these smaller local shops are far more "personable" and friendlier to deal with so you don't mind spending a little more.
I think it also depends a lot on why you visit charity shops. For me it's simply the thrill of the chase. finding a quirky piece for home or the story/history of any given bargain. I can't really be bothered with the faff around "reselling", but to tell people about the "Prada" bag my daughter found for a fiver makes it all the more fun
Good question! In thirty years I've rarely found anything of antique value in a charity shop. On those couple of occasions I've bought a paperback from the shop at a later date, paid with a note and asked them to keep the change. It's yin and yang really; if you don't buy it someone else will, and every chance they won't do the 'decent' thing.
Charity shops are over charging people of there community
Hello David, I would keep it based on my experiences, I 💯 pc with no guilt attached. as the directors of there so called "charity shops " are of mega bucks, its called a "charity" shop for a reason, kind people donate, and we are good samaratins to shop there. We all want a bargain, and why not, so good luck to the lady for spotting it, the shop will not lose out as they are always very much in profit. KEEP IT is my answer .
Yes I once calculated from what the ceo of the charity was earning he was getting 15 pence for every pound I was spending.
I often find old treasures in charity shops or antique fairs A few months ago I found an old heavy sterling snake bangle at our local charity shop priced at £5 trying to to the right thing I told the manager it was valuable when I went in again two weeks later it was still there at £5! So I bought it
I give advice for free to a near by heart foundation shop when they are stuck with identifying and valuing vintage toys, but to be be fair they are pretty hot on checking everything and valuing it, so I’m surprised this charity shop missed this item. I’ve also bought things from charity shops for my toy museum, that I have later flipped. But this was years apart, and all the donations from the museum go to charity. So I hadn’t thought much about it until watching your video. Food for thought.
People mostly go to Charity Shops for a bargain. The treasure hunt. To hire someone to price everything to online prices would mean no one would bother going in. The shops would close, and charities would sell online only and thus would have to hire ebay listers
I know some Charities do have experts who look at objects, I suppose it might depend on the volunteers picking pieces out for valuation. I once found an envelope with quite a bit of cash in it tucked into a book. I contacted the charity shop and was really surprised to be told there was no way of finding out who had donated it, even though there was some writing on the envelope and that they had no process to take the money. I gave them a donation and kept the rest 🤷♀️
A new charity shop opened 15 years ago. The manager didn't know about true prices. In those days there was no Google to cross price check.
I bought a lovely antique large oil painting for £10
I hung it in my house and it looks lovely above the fireplace. It's worth £400 from Google pricing.
I believe if a buyer keeps the object for pleasure then the difference in value is 'what it is' and no money should be given to the charity.
Thats why we go to the charity shop to find a bargain.. what would i do if i made hundreds of pounds go and look for more
Nothing stopping the charity shop selling it to a dealer
NO! they got it for nothing, you paid the price that was asked, and most of the money from a charity goes to wages rent and CEO wages. its worth giving them a donation. i read a few years ago a bunch of oxfam workers went haiti for a natural disaster but ended up abusing people
I like to buy at charity shops and resell for profit. I also bring in items that I don't use anymore. Give and take.
I sell on ebay here
In Australia, it is not for fun it is a business. It is no different from high St retailers buying cheap and adding a mark up. However, I do go back every now and then and make a donation. I also help them if they need help identifying things, so for me it is a win, win situation. Make sure you build a relationship with local charity shop (or Op Shop over here in Australia).
No it’s fine. Business is business and most charity shops near me check what the items are worth and they sell them at a very high price also the charity shop is by appointment only.. it’s in Cheshire so that says it all. If the shop didn’t due diligence and check the items value then so be it. Most items on the antique road show are charity shop find an they don’t give it back they go on their jolly’s
my wife was a volunteer in a local Hospice charity shop, she sold a man a pair of ladies shoes (at asking price) following week he came back and said he had sold them (some kind of designer shoes) for £300 and he donated £100 back to the charity. RUclips is full of videos of "resellers" UK & USA and charities are aware therefore prices have shot up and most have their own ebay store. Initially back in the day charity shops were used by lower income people as a cheaper source of clothing/ shoes etc Not Now prices are higher than high street stores Sale items.
Then the charity shop also has to give the item back to the donator because he/she also might not have known the real value of it!
If somebody donates something that turns out to be worth a lot of money, slim chance the charity shop would give some of it back to the donator (they could track down through gift aid or attempt to find through social media posts etc...)
Charity shops take huge profits, it costs them £0, rates on shop are reduced, free staff etc. most eBay better stuff to squeeze even more out of it. Well done finding anything in them, most stuff worth a lot less than what they ask. Also they start at a silly high price then reduce it over the next month until somebody falls for it. I had an antique shop, if I used that method I wouldn’t have any customers as they would think I was immoral and greedy.
I've worked in a charity shop (we call them "op" shops here in Australia) and because it was not a wealthy area, jewellery rarely arrived. I've often thought that some shops in wealthier areas could be missing out if valuable items were donated. Yes, having an expert's opinion could really be useful.
P.S. Also, the charity AKA thrift shops in the United States are outrageously priced You're paying new clothing prices in some case which would be the same as a quality department store... so my answer is not. I have an entire string videos I've done on items I've gotten for almost nothing and sold for amazing profit. It took work to get there. Leslie, our charity shops AKA thrift shops in United States The big ones which are the major ones people go to have CEOs that receive millions and bonuses free houses etc so the majority of what you donate to them is simply turned into cash a board of directors deals happily with the free money profit. If it is a community based charity and you can easily research and figure that out then we have given a portion of cash or goods we donated to the organization. However, I would not give anything back to salvation army, Savers, Goodwill and a few others that are giant national or regional "charities".
@@TheVelvetLoungeLife Agree👍
Savers is unabashedly for-profit. They 'give' a percentage, about 10%, to a charity, but they're chasing $$$. Goodwill does the same while pretending to be nonprofit and help people. Some regions actually do, but around here all they do is pay the CEO a fat paycheck. The only thing I usually find worth buying in there is Target holiday candy, and you have to watch pricetags on that too because their markdown is often more than after-CHristmas price at RETAIL. Aww heck no. 100% of my in-kind donations go to small local charities.
@@TheVelvetLoungeLife I worked for a charity and the amount of money that they wasted was a scandal.
they can all afford to paying an SEO thousands each year ! if you find something worth more than you pay good on you.
I personally would donate back 50 % of the profit especially if it were a large profit but only if it was a small independent shop and not the big bent ones
I found an unpriced, so it wasn't really for sale yet, piece of real campaign furniture in my local Restore last year. It was a chest that had front latches, recessed fold-out brass handles, and recessed side handles to pick up and move three separate pieces. Having no personal use for it, I told the manager exactly what it was, besides old as the dickens. I didn't tell him a value, not knowing myself especially since it was out of market. That piece probably saw service in India and fetched up in Connecticut. Fortunately for them the manager listened and took it off of the floor for more research. Some antique dealer is probably cursing my name out there, but Habitat for Humanity put up a piece of someone's house for the price of that chest.
The charity shops should be sharper on assessing the value of items, They can use the internet , like anyone else can. When I ran an Antiques centre, I used to offer that service to several shops foc. If you have a result and make a large profit, then give a donation. You could argue that when people do the hard work they deserve the profit. You don't have to be in either camp.
What is immoral, is selling something with high intrinsic value that cost you £3 on Ebay, with a reserve.
Many charity shops have deals with antique dealers who are offered cherry picked items before they appear in the shop. That's fair. If high value items are missed then it's also perfectly fair for anyone to buy at the price offered. I paid 6 pounds for a Satsuma vase that I later sold for 50. That's just as fair as the dealer profiting from their deal with the shop. I see no problem in these transactions.
Charities are a business and should act as such. If the senior exec team cannot make a positive business case for better value vetting of their assets they are letting down their donors and the endpoints of the charity and should be removed from office without any recompense. How long would any other business execs last if they constantly undervalued their product values and undersold them to the level charities undersell. As I understand it charities employ "top" level execs so they can be run as a business and increase the profit lines but the bottom line of the asset valuation is totally ignored in most cases by not seeking out increased revenues from online selling opportunities. Outrageous in my opinion. IMO buying from a charity and making profit is no different from buying from any other seller that chooses to undervalue their assets. They are the seller and set the price, it is their decision.
My friend is a dealer in collectables he and many more friends of his buy from charity shops to make a profit, now the charity shops get the money they ask for and the dealers get a profit themselves, a lot of charity shops sell online anyway, he has made some nice profits over the years and he never gives extra money back to the shops because he feels he would be then asked every time hes in the shops for extra donations etc etc, i agree with him 100% its up to the charity shops to make sure themselves they are not selling items to cheaply its as simple as that
I think it becomes a moral issue when you cheat someone out of what is rightfully theirs. This doesn't seem to fit that category. Isn't the premise of Antique Road Trip, Bargain Hunt, etc just that?...find the sleeper that has not been discovered and make a profit. It seems that having everything appraised in a thrift shop before sales, would defeat the purpose of going out and finding that treasure. Giving back to the charity after making a great profit seems to me to be between a person and their conscience. When I buy used jewelry lots in bulk, I don't ask the sellers to check every piece to make sure I'm not getting any gold or silver for such a low price...I look for the lots that are decribed as "untested and unsearched", and maybe I'll find that one piece that makes me a profit. 😀
The person who donated it didn't realise the value so it starts with them
I sell on Vinted and people get annoyed when someone buys something and then resells it for a lot more. Once you bought something it's down to you what yo
If you paid the price they wanted, and it was a bargain, its your good fortune. Donate a little bit if they feel the need, but it is up to the employees/volunteers/management to research and price their items accordingly. Its many times a case where "knowledge is power". If you recognize an item as being a bargain, and it is priced at a figure you are happy to pay, no matter how low, you are making money from your knowledge. You earned that knowledge, so you should benefit at some point. However, if you are there under the guise that you are to make a fair offer, it is a different situation. Then you make a fair offer based on your knowledge and your end market. It should be noted that not all "charities" are created equal....they are inefficient at times, and so many charities spend 80% or more of the received funds on internal employees, administration, etc, rather than the intended end recipients.
Running a reclaimed and antique shop is expensive… most of are prices are cheaper than charity shops… and they still
Seem to get by charging new shop prices…
All there stuff goes to the council bin if doesn’t sell with in the month…. Remember that one.
Charity shops check all donations and anything of worth will end up on ebay, if they miss it that's their problem.
If you were to make a massive profit then donate whatever amount makes you comfortable back to charity? I am fine with keeping it all also. Something you don’t hear much of are the people ‘working’ in the charity shops who occasionally find items handed in that are worth a small fortune yet they never make the shelve for whatever ‘reason’… theft from charity from within! The fact I know of two cases local to me means it must happen all over the world. One, a guy I used to work with helped out at a charity shop and noticed a rare book that had just been sorted through….he gave them the £2 they wanted for it, fully aware what it was and sold it for £1900
The gift aid letters I've received for the value of sales of my donations to charity shops balance out any bargains I've found. As long as you're giving as well as taking then it's fine. There are many far more morally dubious financial arrangements to take aim at than someone who has a bit of luck in a charity shop.
On the subject of hiring experts, who do you hire? My local auction centre can't tell it's glass from it's elbow, and one of these days I will go round an antique centre with a marker penand relabel every piece of Chinese glass described as Murano.
In the many glass identification Facebook groups I'm a member of, we often have charity shop staff sharing glass they've received for an id, and most of the time they get one. Perhaps a better approach is for charities to identify the groups of expertise out there willing to help for free and provide a list to shop managers as a resource
Keep the thing and cherish like it should be.
If the person who gave it to the charity shop was unaware of the value then its their fault for not checking.
Then if the charity sell it without checks - then tough
most charity shops DO have their stuff looked at by an expert and its getting hard to find even a small profit. times they are a changing!
It's morally wrong for the likes of Oxfam to give something like 4% to the needy and keep the rest .
Arbitrage is a legal, and legitimate process - if you profit you are in business: this is how the world works. If people fail to recognize the value of items that is down to them.
What would you do if it is a valuable item that you want to keep? You wouldnt be selling it on and getting money for it yourself but should you give the charity its value?
For me the crux of the matter is if your client knew the value of the object. Is she an expert who saw immediately the value, or an amateur who liked the object and thought that maybe there was value in it?
For me personally, there is a huge difference between the two. If she is an amateur, then good luck to her and she should keep her gain.
All well and good when charity shops have ceos but some are small charities. I chose 2 rings for 50p each out of a pot of similar rings and when i got them home found them they had hallmarks and were citrine and amethyst. I phoned the hospice charity shop and told them to check the others and more of them had hallmarks. They told me not to worry about the 2 I had and thanked me for letting them know.
U can't, they have ebay prices where I am. 2 shops, found only one item to flip, everything else marginal.
I knew one lady who was in charge of a charity shop and she was well into jewellery so she always had first look and some item never reached the shop floor to sell.
Sorry, if the charity shop missed the value in that piece…it is not the buyers fault if it is of higher value. If it made me feel guilty, then that is on me…and, I can then make the choice to pay it forward, or keep it to myself. I do not feel that I would owe the shop that sold it to me anything.
I'd go in and buy more from the charity shop. I've bought things for a couple of quid that turned out to be worth £50 and occasionally higher. But then I've also bought things for a couple of quid that were worth a couple of quid. I frequently buy things from boot sales that are worth 10 or 20x the price paid, I don't share profit with the seller. But I do buy more from them in future.
Called op shops here in Australia which stands for opportunity. They were created to give the opportunity for the poor people to have nice stuff. But here in Australia they are just big business these days. in a lot of people's opinion. I mainly stick to the church thrift or charity shops. One shop sells everything for one or two dollars maximum. Sometimes you can pick up items worth, three or four hundred dollars easily. But these shops find out your r a reseller and they will chase you out as they dislike resellers. Back to the four main charities here who run shops, few years ago we had severe bushfires with people lost everything their houses all their clothing left with nothing. There was a big drive to raise funds for these victims. We all dug deep into our pockets raising over 50 million dollars for these families. The four major charities kept most of the money to use in other areas. A lot of Australians got very upset with these charities. Is there a setup to help poor people why are they selling certain clothing more expensive than on Ebay Don't forget that these big charities have CEOs on very big incomes. They go through all the stuff it's very rare that's like slip through these days. They actually sell on eBay and online sites.
Most charity shops here in Edinburgh have very high prices and know their stock well. If a seller doesn't know the value of their own stock there in lies a bargain and its fair game. Being fair is a matter for ones own consciousness.
I have donated to different charities all my life and worked in quite a few too, they must have made hundreds from my items as I’ve donated some lovely things. . But I have to say imo. If you pay the price for an item it’s then yours to do what you will with them. . Some of the charity shops I’ve volunteered in sometimes have a local person to check over items they aren’t sure of to help them out. 👍
I know many charity shops in the edinburgh area have valuers (dealers in many cases) who donate their time to looking over donated items and give advice.
These shops now Over charge for stuff - they check ebay listing prices (not solds) and most of them have there own ebay store that they keep all the "good" stuff to go on - so making it near impossible to find a bargain like you used to years ago !
@@Twelve50TV if something is in a charity shop and I find it on eBay at the same price I’d rather buy it from eBay, the person who is selling it no doubt paid for the item and I might be genuinely helping someone pay their bills instead of paying for a CEO’s wage
David, in my book, this is simple: not amoral. As an American,
well traveled thru out UK, live in heart of Chicago, donate to a hospital charity shop,
if I give away a valuable and the buyer is a shrewd soul; so be it. See you on The Road Trip?
The charity shop should take responsibility for selling things cheaply. I say they should keep it all AND go back there and shop again!