This used book that I bought for 12£ on the internet was apparently previously bought from Oxfam for 1.99£
This used book that I bought for 12£ on the internet was apparently previously bought from Oxfam for 1.99£
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?
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.
The seller took the time and gas to go and get books from oxfam so that you could have it shipped to your house
If the shipping is more than 99p it would have been cheaper for you to buy it new.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/entangled-life/merlin-sheldrake/9781784708276
I can also see multiple options for second hand between £5-£7.
Or as others have said, there's the library.
It was your choice to pay near original price + shipping for second hand
Wait until you learn about the CEO of Goodwill bragging about all the idiots who give him free shit to sell.
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.
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, risk taken, and money earned.
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 mega-corporations charge 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), and the snowballing impact they have on the rest of the economy (by pricing out smaller companies, monopolising industries, avoiding tax, and so on).
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)/¯
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.
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
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?
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.
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).
With the rise of ebay thrift resalers, I feel like all the charity/thrift stores around me price rather aggressively.
You should definitely spend time trawling through Oxfam shops for books, if this annoys you.
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 money
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.
A used book for 12£ is maybe 8€ more than I normally spent on used books.
For those curious:
The book is Entangled Life - How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures
Costs money and time to package and ship stuff. They should've at least removed the sticker though.
Takes time and money to do that as well though, and I kinda feel like op would not have appreciated that markup
Most book sellers on the Internet roam around, buy used books, cut them to make them look new and then sell it as new.
Cut them? What does that man?
They take a bit off the edges, which, when done right, can make them look new at a first glance
Using a paper cutter, aligning the worn pages along the outside edge of the book into a nice looking rectangle
The price printed on it says 12.99 but yeah that is bullshit. They could not even be bothered to remove the sticker.
That was the price when new though
Welcome to capitalism!
This behavior is literally millennia older than capitalism.
"one man's trash is another man's treasure" almost to the letter.
Well yeah that is why it's bull
It's crazy, right?
The whole world's gone sideways.
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.
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