[deleted]
This used book that I bought for 12£ on the internet was apparently previously bought from Oxfam for 1.99£
Submitted 11 months ago by ElCanut@jlai.lu to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://jlai.lu/pictrs/image/42fca05d-b943-4e21-8e76-f3b6ca1bb031.jpeg
Comments
Illuminostro@lemmy.world 11 months ago
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Even worse, how much his wife was paid in the 90’s, and the percentage of Goodwill income that goes to helping people.
Fuck good will.
Liz@midwest.social 11 months ago
Like I’m gonna fucking spend my time trying to sell my old t-shirts for $2.
ShepherdPie@midwest.social 11 months ago
What I do to get back at them is to take all our decent donation stuff to local thrift stores and all the bulky crap that’s barely hanging together goes to Goodwill for them to dispose of.
Squirrel@thelemmy.club 11 months ago
It is tacky to leave the sticker on there with the lower price, but you are the one who paid 12£. How does it matter what they paid? If they search for books to resell at a profit, that’s time spent and money earned.
DessertStorms@kbin.social 11 months ago
So you're annoyed that someone (who took the time to go to a charity shop, list the book online, and ship it to you) charged you the RRP for the book, that you didn't have to buy from them?
I hope you have the same kind of energy for when you pay mega-corporations anything from tens to thousands of pounds for products that often cost single pounds or even pennies to manufacture (due to underpaying for labour and materials that were in turn manufactured by underpaid labour as well).
The person you bought this from likely works for themsleves, trolling charity shops all day for bargains, and almost certainly pays tax on their income. I'm as anti-capitalist as they get, but even I can't take issue with this. If they had charged you more than the RRP, sure, that'd pushing it, but if you didn't want to pay full price, you should have spent your own time looking for the bargain. ¯\(ツ)/¯
ealoe@ani.social 11 months ago
Ok, don’t buy it online then go get it from the thrift store yourself. Oh that takes valuable time and effort? Guess that’s why it was marked up, peoples’ time is worth money.
ElCanut@jlai.lu 11 months ago
Because I live in another country, a non English speaking one, so there’s zero chance that thud book will make it to my country thrift store
ealoe@ani.social 11 months ago
My case rests, the seller of the book provided you a valuable service then by making a product available to you that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to get, and you’re mad that they made a little money for their time?
Wrench@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Rofl. Imagine being mildly infuriated that someone marked up a bargain bin purchase by $10 to cover their time and effort to make it available to you to buy from the comfort of your home.
Why don’t you spend your day rummaging through thrift stores for it next time?
OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.world 11 months ago
We shit on ‘upselling’ all the time. If you cleaned those pages, pressed them back and touched up the spine of the book, sure. But I’d be annoyed too if there was a 500% markup on a resale of used material
Wrench@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You see 500% markup.
I see 10 pounds for the time and effort to shop around for bargains, then storaging your haul, list the items online, and the cost of the other dozens of books that never sell, and then time and effort to package and ship, and whatever customer service along the way.
TseseJuer@lemmy.world 11 months ago
just write down the book from memory then
Th4tGuyII@kbin.social 11 months ago
It always sucks to know you paid more than the seller did - but that just means Oxfam undervalued the book.
Having worked in one, charity shops tend to have a habit of either really undervaluing or overvaluing their donated goods - cause the people who actually set the prices mostly just guess based on looks and nothing more. Only if an item looks expensive will they do any research, and even then never really enough.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Our local shop has a database of values.
Granted, it’s not perfect, but I would assume since they have one it’s a publicly traded commodity (that is someone maintains a DB and sells it to such organizations).
Halosheep@lemm.ee 11 months ago
With the rise of ebay thrift resalers, I feel like all the charity/thrift stores around me price rather aggressively.
HeartyBeast@kbin.social 11 months ago
You should definitely spend time trawling through Oxfam shops for books, if this annoys you.
blackn1ght@feddit.uk 11 months ago
Putting the £ sign after the value is in itself mildly infuriating.
ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Mildly?
I’m going to assume they’re not British…
waz@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Maybe they just typed it out how they would say it?
NaoPb@eviltoast.org 11 months ago
At least they didn’t write 1£99
downpunxx@fedia.io 11 months ago
listen, you paid what you thought it was worth to you
that's how retail works
they buy product, then sell them at a markup
you buy products from them only if you think it's worth the price they're asking
you get the product, they get the moneyHawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
I don’t think about the price, It’s about reselling something you got at a charity.
Plenty of stores sell cheap, used stuff that everyone can fit in their budgets. More and more of these resellers are picking the stores clean, leaving a lot less available for those who “need” it.
downpunxx@fedia.io 11 months ago
charity shops aren't for those who "need" the products, their sole purpose is to generate funds for the charity. have you lost your mind?
menemen@lemmy.world 11 months ago
A used book for 12£ is maybe 8€ more than I normally spent on used books.
pro_user@lemm.ee 11 months ago
For those curious:
The book is Entangled - Life How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures
bokherif@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Most book sellers on the Internet roam around, buy used books, cut them to make them look new and then sell it as new.
jonkenator@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Cut them? What does that man?
bonn2@lemm.ee 11 months ago
They take a bit off the edges, which, when done right, can make them look new at a first glance
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Using a paper cutter, aligning the worn pages along the outside edge of the book into a nice looking rectangle
FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 11 months ago
Costs money and time to package and ship stuff.
meekah@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Takes time and money to do that as well though, and I kinda feel like op would not have appreciated that markup
Taiatari@lemmynsfw.com 11 months ago
Bought where on the internet? I think that context is quite relevant tbh.
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The price printed on it says 12.99 but yeah that is bullshit. They could not even be bothered to remove the sticker.
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 11 months ago
[deleted]ElCanut@jlai.lu 11 months ago
X10 markup on a product you bought from a charity is not a reasonable price imo
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I could see it if the book was new and just being resold. But I gathered tgat it is used from the post and the text
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
That was the price when new though
Welcome to capitalism!
BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 11 months ago
This behavior is literally millennia older than capitalism.
gbin@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
“one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” almost to the letter.
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Well yeah that is why it’s bull
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s crazy, right?
The whole world’s gone sideways.
elxeno@lemm.ee 11 months ago
1•99
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
It could have been £300 and you will still complain and be the sucker for paying for that. Is the seller obligated to ship to you at a price of £2?
You could probably shop around a bunch of Oxfams to (maybe) get the book you wanted for cheap. Or you could also find discounted books at the Oxfam and list them for just £1 or 2 above the sticker price. Is that worth your time?
Like I get being upset at institutional practices like soft drinks costing companies a handful of pence per item when they charge £2.50 (or £4.50 at the cinema), and being stingy on the refills. Books on the other hand are a luxury item that (other than the textbook racket by publishers) you can go without.
Thorry84@feddit.nl 11 months ago
You chose to buy it at that price. What does it matter what the original price was or how much the seller made? You thought the price was fair, had the choice to not buy it or buy it somewhere else.
This isn’t like scalpers buying up items, creating artificial scarcity and driving up prices for profit. This is just plain old capitalism.
Presumably the price also included shipping and handling fees, since you bought it online. So in the end the seller probably made just a couple of quid, he deserves to get paid for what he does no?
ElCanut@jlai.lu 11 months ago
12£ is just the book, no shipping included.
Making a X10 markup on something you bought from a charity is infuriating imo
And sorry for finding basic capitalism infuriating.
Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world 11 months ago
0.0£ at your local library.
then_three_more@lemmy.world 11 months ago
If the shipping is more than 99p it would have been cheaper for you to buy it new.
www.waterstones.com/book/…/9781784708276
Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk 11 months ago
I’m curious, why are you putting the £ symbol after the number and not before?