Do you risk buying second hand?

As a volunteer in one of the major charity shops I have definitely noticed a wider range of people are willing to buy from Charity Shops, buying 2nd hand has become more acceptable and even seen as sensible.
It is a very good way of recycling through re-use and though I personally have had no real problems buying 2nd hand on Ebay I would always prefer to be able to handle the goods first and buy from a known entity like a charity shop even at a higher price. Gets round the sort of problems you had with the SLR lens.
However even on Ebay some sellers go out of their way to describe every fault or blemish and this must give people confidence as they usually achieve the higher prices

if i get chance iwill buy second hand how do you know how long something in the shop ie comet has been there???

A lot of second-hand items are of a much better quality than new ones on the market.

I’ve just cleaned and changed the drawer knobs on a wooden chest of drawers bought more than 30 years ago second-hand. It looks quite different. It is what was called utility furniture so not of fantastic quality to start off with but definitely better than all the chipboard and melamine for sale now.

I’ve bought a lot of crockery to match my existing on ebay. Online shops that specialise in this have made it so much easier to match. You can also list requests.

The British Heart Foundation shops have lots of good furniture. If you are lucky your Council will list these shops for you so that you can take – or they can collect furniture. Sometimes there are also projects where you can get your furniture mended, re-covered etc.

A decent chunk of my model railway was bought second hand. You have to be incredibly careful to read the details, and always assume the worst (if it doesn’t say this is the new model with the better motor, it never is!). Buying model railway stuff is a good lesson in eBay buying. Set your budget, never pay more than x% of the new price, check the details and the feedback, watch the postage prices, bit carefully (set limits just above obvious round numbers, for example). And inspect everything carefully on receipt and be ready to argue with the seller.

I buy all my crime fiction in charity shops and swap books with some friends after having read them. This means that about four of us read the same book for very little money and it is then returned to the charity shop to be sold again. I noticed the stock of books in charity shops has reduced with the rising popularity of eReaders. Are you able to swap eReader books with friends without swapping the eReader itself.

I wanted to buy a set of coffee tables last year and set up a search on eBay. I waited in vain for the right proper oak wood ones to turn up and in the end bought a nearly right habitat set. They were very strong wood and very cheap and I was able to collect them so I was reasonably happy.

Because I have very wide windows and have two windows in my living room I have to spend quite a lot of money on curtains. I tried for a few months to find second hand curtains in a curtain exchange shop in Marylebone which sold very high quality curtains but I could not get the right sizes also they had too many swags and tails with sets. I gave up in the end and bought cheaper quality curtains elsewhere.

I am really pleased to see how many Which? staff buy secondhand. I wish it became fashionable for our throwaway society to do the same.