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Thorry84 ,

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 OP ,

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 ,

0.0£ at your local library.

Hawk ,

Ah yes, libraries. Those mega buildings with every book on Earth inside…

pacmondo ,

You’re right. Since they don’t have every book ever written, why bother even looking?

zero_spelled_with_an_ecks ,

Do your libraries not have a system to request books from other libraries? Not trying to be a jerk, I just have looked for some obscure things before and sometimes they had to be requested from other libraries.

Kodachrome ,
@Kodachrome@kbin.social avatar

https://search.worldcat.org/ is a good inter-library search site. My librarians use it (among other things, I'm sure) to find books/DVDs to acquire for me on ILL, but since the site is public sometimes I just do the search for them and send them a link to what I want when I submit a hold request.

BearOfaTime , (edited )

Lol.

Oh, yes let’s let perfection be the enemy of good.

It’s a rare thing I can’t get from my Library (mostly music and some movies), but anything educational and it’s there.

I regularly check out DVD collections from The Teaching Company of university courses - I’m talking Harvard, Columbia, etc. Currently have History of Western Civilization on deck for ripping. It’s 40 hours of lectures, the DVD collection would cost $1500 on the open market.

It’s one of dozens I’ve ripped for my own use, and converted to MP3 to listen when at gym or in the car.

Nouveau_Burnswick ,

The picture shows ISBN 9781784708276

I search this to get the title: “Entangled Life - How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures”

I see £, so I’m going to assume it’s the UK. I picked Manchester as a city to search.

I search the book.

Seven 2021 versions, three 2020 versions, and audio book are available.

then_three_more ,

Which means even if it’s not available in OPs local library they could go to their library and get it on an interlibrary loan.

prayer ,

Based and librarypilled

tomi000 ,

fyi OP said theyre from another country. Not that it makes other points made invalid.

Klear ,

Found two copies in the Municipal Library of Prague. This is not some super-obscure title.

tomi000 ,

I dont doubt that, but saying that its readily available assuming OP lives in the country where the book comes from is not necesarily true

PrettyFlyForAFatGuy ,

Everytime i have been unable to find a book in the library i have asked the librarian and had it brough in from another library. i dont think there has ever been a book i wanted they didnt have somewhere in the chain

then_three_more , (edited )

If the shipping is more than 99p it would have been cheaper for you to buy it new.

www.waterstones.com/book/…/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

Digestive_Biscuit ,
@Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk avatar

I’m curious, why are you putting the £ symbol after the number and not before?

ElCanut OP ,

I’m sorry I’m not English so I’m used to Euros, I wasn’t sure if the £ was supposed to be before or after

Illuminostro ,

Wait until you learn about the CEO of Goodwill bragging about all the idiots who give him free shit to sell.

Liz ,

Like I’m gonna fucking spend my time trying to sell my old t-shirts for $2.

ShepherdPie ,

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.

Liz ,

Yeah I actually hear they’re a shit company, but the idea that they’re somehow pulling one over on the people who donate is fucking rich.

BearOfaTime ,

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.

Squirrel ,
@Squirrel@thelemmy.club avatar

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.

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

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)*/¯

Wrench ,

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 own day rummaging through thrift stores for it next time?

OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe ,

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 ,

You see 500% markup.

I see 10 pounds for the time and effort to shop around for bargains, then storing 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 ,

just write down the book from memory then

ealoe ,

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 OP ,

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 ,

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?

Th4tGuyII ,
@Th4tGuyII@kbin.social avatar

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 ,

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 ,

With the rise of ebay thrift resalers, I feel like all the charity/thrift stores around me price rather aggressively.

HeartyBeast ,
@HeartyBeast@kbin.social avatar

You should definitely spend time trawling through Oxfam shops for books, if this annoys you.

downpunxx ,

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

Hawk ,

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 ,

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?

Hawk ,

Well, not according to these organisations, like Oxfam here who boast about the ecological and social aspect of second hand products.

Clearly you have no idea what these organisations do or stand for?

blackn1ght ,

Putting the £ sign after the value is in itself mildly infuriating.

ClockworkOtter ,

Mildly?

I’m going to assume they’re not British…

waz ,

Maybe they just typed it out how they would say it?

neo ,

It’s the way all other units are handled. I don’t get why money has to be treated differently. Maybe because currencies are the Gods of our time… (hits vape)

NaoPb ,

At least they didn’t write 1£99

menemen ,

A used book for 12£ is maybe 8€ more than I normally spent on used books.

pro_user ,

For those curious:

The book is Entangled Life - How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

bokherif ,

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 ,

Cut them? What does that man?

bonn2 ,

They take a bit off the edges, which, when done right, can make them look new at a first glance

Rentlar ,

Using a paper cutter, aligning the worn pages along the outside edge of the book into a nice looking rectangle

FartsWithAnAccent ,
@FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io avatar

Costs money and time to package and ship stuff. They should've at least removed the sticker though.

meekah ,
@meekah@lemmy.world avatar

Takes time and money to do that as well though, and I kinda feel like op would not have appreciated that markup

Taiatari ,

Bought where on the internet? I think that context is quite relevant tbh.

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