Friday, January 30, 2015
What's a good discount for something used?
They say your car loses thousands in value the minute you drive it off the lot. Seems these days, other stuff may not. I see Savers charging close to the original price on some things. Lots of stuff on goodwill.com goes for over half the original price...and they don't even guarantee that it works! I try to pay no more than .30 on the dollar since you never know how much "life" is left in the product and usually have no way to return defective items. (Of course, I prefer to pay much less.) Still can't get over people who will pay too much for used stuff. Are they new to used or just don't care what they spend?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It's an interesting question, and I suppose the answer depends on what sort of item it is and what sort of shape it's in. I mean, some items like musical instruments often go up in value as they age. For clothes, I sometimes prefer used to new simply because if I buy it used I know for sure that it's not gonna fall apart or fade dramatically after the first wash. Electronics on the other hand, I would NEVER buy used. Of course in general I try to take the simple approach and just not buy anything at all (used or new) unless I either really need it or really want it.
ReplyDeleteBut when I do need something, I've found that there's a huge price discrepancy at different stores. As a general rule, the ARC has the best prices, Savers has the worst, and if you stick to the seedy sections of town you'll almost always get better prices than if you shop in an upscale neighborhood. Of course, the best prices of all are at fundraising rummage sales, especially if you show up in the last hour of the sale - they'll practically pay you to take stuff away at that point! Not that I'm suggesting that, mind you... it only leads to clutter and trouble in the long run! :-)
Dang. We don't have an ARC around here, but you got me to looking for new thrift stores and I see we have Salvation Army stores I was unaware of. I'll have to give them a visit when I'm in the neighborhood. I always wonder if the nonprofit thrift chains have a strategy when it comes to distribution (i.e.: higher end stuff in better neighborhoods).
Delete