I very nearly bought it..

Dont know if you saw anything about it but Oxfam had a big online sale,and it was all handbags with designer labels,some of them were vintage,and in a few minutes of the site opening it was swamped with people seeing what was on offer.The books are a rip off and my local Help the aged somtimes has offers,like three for a quid or even five for a quid so then I buy ten or so to keep me going,but if these have all een donated then its pretty crappy to sell them for two and three quid.

Wow, that's a bit expensive for a second hand bag, i know it might have been a good make but still, i think that's being a bit greedy on their part. In fact it may sound horrible to say but i do think charity shops have goten greedy with their prices. I have actually been in one and seen stuff for sale that is cheaper to buy brand new, like toiletries and stuff. Also their books can be really expensive, in Oxfam in York where i used to live there was an Oxfam bookshop selling second hand books for like £3 each, when you can get them brand new for less than £4 at the supermakerts anyway. I don't even bother going in the anymore, i'd like to support the charity but charity starts at home!

Hi ruby, [i]That is also my attitude when it comes to second hand items, i don't go with the price if I think it is not right no matter how I like the bag.... In my Country before, I tried to negotiate, LOL! And I will be forcing the lady and convinced her that I am always buying there and she should give me discount...LOL! Most of the time, i will be bringing it home! LOL![/i]

I went in our charity shops the other day too, I have not been in them for a while but just walking past the windows a couple of things caught my eye. I went in to take a closer look and noticed that they were brand name clothes, I looked at the price expecting them to be about £3.00 and was quite shocked to see that they were in fact £6.00 each. I know that they are cheaper than the actual thing but they were not brand new and as I know my prices I know that I could have bought the same top brand new for about £15.00. It seems to me that the prices in the charity shops where I live are getting higher and higher.

Ooooh, you're about to set me off one one of my favourite rants!! Do you know, that's exactly the reason that I stopped working in a charity shop a few years ago? I was disgusted that on the one hand they were pricing things really high, and on the other they were chucking perfectly good goods in the skip out the back because they didn't have room for them on the shelves. By my way of thinking, if they just priced everything a little cheaper they would sell twice as much, and probably attract more custom too as turnover would be faster. Throwing perfectly good donations in the bin was a disgrace. The charity shop I worked in was one of the big names too, so I don't believe it was an isolated case. Books for instance had to have uncreased spines and if not they were binned. Now they were pricing them around the £2 mark for a second hand paperback. If they priced them at 50p people would care less about the spine and buy more on a whim. And they had policies against selling certain types of goods, second hand kids shoes and 18 certificate videos for instance. Now I have no problem with them having policies like that in place, but they needed to communicate it to the donators. They would accept donations of those items with a big smile and then chuck them away. Staff were instructed to turn away nothing but electricals. But if I were donating stuff and realised that it was going to go in the bin I would prefer to walk another few shops further down the road and donate it somewhere else. Anyway, I must stop ranting before I lose the point of the discussion completely! Don't mind me, I'm just letting off some steam ..... ;-)

Gina is a pretty good make ,sold in Clarks shoe shops and ive had a Gina bag for years and its as good as the day I bought it,theres no damage to it at all,good navy leather and two large pockets.Ive been looking at the fashion bags in the magazines,a bag by Dune is fifrty five pounds and a likeness by Miss Selfridge is twenty quid,so why not pick the better priced one.

good decision i guess...since im like that also sometimes..im an impulsive buyer but when it comes to second items i think many times before buying it and take also in consideration on the prices as well..

Hi ruby-have to say nowadays second hand shop tend to be a bit more expenxive sometimes I have one my way and they only take the best things in they too are too expensive for me on some things littleowl

go girl! its really not practical to buy second hand in an expensive price. thats why they called it second hand cause its used already. i dont mind buying expensive bag if its brand new. second hand is still a second hand even if its branded.

Twenty quid for a second hand bag???has the world gone bonkers??thats beyond my wildest dreams to pay that amount of my hard earned money out for a second hand handbag.It could be called whatever designer label it wants to be called,im not falling for it,and I reckon the Heart foundation ought to take a good look at what they are doing.theres fund raising and robbery and that comes into the second category,its just exploitation .You could see a fiver or so,thats well and good,but over that its a joke.

They have all jumped on the bandwaggon Ruby,each and everyone of them,they have increased their prices threefold in their efforts to make more and more money.I cant really get the whole concept of how they work,there is a store,for which they pay a rent,then there are staff,in most cases there is a manager and a deputy manager,the rest are volunteers,the clothes are donated,the wages are paid,the overheads are paid,those who sit up above are paid,and the remaining scraps go to the designated charity,surely Ruby there must be a better way to shareour money with those less fortunate?what do you say,you have worked in one I know you have?