90 quid for a charity shop dress - madness or not?

This weekend I was having a potter round the charity shops near my in-laws on the outskirts of London. I’ve noticed before that the charity shops there are more expensive than my local ones but this time I found a dress that was priced at £89.99!! I couldn’t believe it. Why 90 quid I wondered? I checked the label to see if it was made of spun gold, no, but it was 50% silk and Ralph Lauren. Even taking this into account could they justify charging this much for it? It got me thinking. What is reasonable for a charity to charge and what are people prepared to pay?

I personally go charity shopping for a bargain and love our local Barnardos and their everything for £1.99 policy. However, I do question it. I know they do it to increase turnover which makes sense, but while £1.99 is an absolute steal for a Coast dress it is overpriced for a Primark t-shirt. It wouldn’t be much more than that new and people realise this. I think there is also a danger that people won’t donate decent stuff as they’ll think another charity could get more money for it.

 Also it’s got me into a bad habit - I now think that anything over a fiver is too much and because of this I’ve nearly missed out on some great bargains including jeans that fit perfectly (very hard to come by). My initial reaction was that at £6.99 they were too expensive (yes, I know…) but I had some time to kill so I tried them on. After buying them I went online to see how much Hobbs jeans go for and it was £85. Brilliant!

So, having said this, have I missed out on the bargain of my life by dismissing the Ralph Lauren dress? Having no idea how much they are new I of course googled it. The cheapest I found was £200 and they went up to a grand. Ok, so that’s making £90 seem not so bad, but I still think it’s crazy. If I was going to spend £90 on a dress I wouldn’t go to a charity shop and who goes charity shopping with £90 to spend? And although it was my kind of dress, halter-neck which I love, it was a summer dress so completely unseasonable, and yellow! I just don’t get the thinking behind it, do you?

 Sophie x