Why choose online charity shops?
The key reason that charities should be considering establishing an online retail presence is to reach more customers. This includes the younger generation which is more used to mobile shopping – and mobile giving – and there’s the added benefit that an online shop can also reach new potential supporters overseas. The digital fundraising potential is enormous: Oxfam’s store reportedly raises over £2 million every year.
But there are other benefits too. The Charity Retail Association says that online stores help charities reach a higher selling price for unusual or high-value goods. In particular, unrecognised treasures are less likely to be unwittingly sold for a few pounds or pence. And customers who buy an item can also be redirected to your charity website, potentially increasing the reach of your charity and encouraging further donations from new donors and existing supporters.
Taking your charity shop online allows you to create an online forum in which to engage directly with your supporters. You can share interesting content about your organisation, your values and your activities.
THIRD-PARTY PLATFORMSFor most charities considering a move to online retailing, there is an important initial choice to be made: do you set up your own e-commerce platform, probably on your existing website, or do you make use of an existing third party e-commerce platform?
The advantage of third party retail platforms, which include eBay and Amazon, is that all the e-commerce infrastructure is already in place and managed for you. For that reason they are popular with charities just starting out in e-commerce: 97% of charities with online retail operations sell on eBay to a greater or lesser extent, according to the Charity Retail Association.
One way to use eBay is to have your own dedicated online charity shop on the site. Many charities have chosen to do this, including British Heart Foundation, CLIC Sargent, Royal British Legion, and Cancer Research UK.
You can also sell items without having a dedicated store, and your charity can also sign up for a payment service called PayPal Giving, and then encourage donors or supporters to list and sell goods on eBay for Charity. For everything they sell, a proportion (up to 100%) of the sale price is given to your charity through your PayPal Giving account.
Second-hand clothes selling and swapping apps like Vinted and Shpock and websites like Re-fashion and Thrift+ have also proved popular with charities looking to tap into a growing consumer awareness around fast fashion and ethical consumption.
BUILD YOUR OWN ONLINE STORESooner or later you may decide to take the plunge and launch your own online charity shop, most likely as part of your existing charity website. This may be a relatively simple retail operation selling a small range of goods branded with your charity’s name, or a fully-fledged online charity shop selling a wide range of donated items.
One of the main benefits of this is that all your marketing materials and initiatives which drive traffic to your charity website will also drive traffic to your online store. Tied into this, you also have complete control of the UX design and customer experience. That means you can match it with your existing marketing materials and brand image.
The good news is that you don’t need to write any software yourself, as there are a number of well-polished e-commerce products including Shopify, 3dcart, and Magento that plug into existing websites. These allow you to display goods with a price and "buy" button, and include a shopping cart, checkout, and payment facilities. If your charity website is built using WordPress then you can also use WordPress’s e-commerce options.
Setting up an online store can be deceptively simple, however, because there are a number of things that you need to think about before you will be ready to open its digital doors. These include:
Photography and description Everything you sell on your online charity shop will have to be photographed and described before it can be put up for sale onlineStorage All items that are for sale online need to be stored somewhere where they can be found and retrieved easily if and when they are soldPricing Online stores may help items sell for more, but you still need to know what items are worth before you list them. Digital tools like eBay’s Terapeak can help charities work out what goods sell well online and at what pricePostage and packaging This can be very time consuming and requires organisation to ensure packing materials are to hand and postal or courier services are arranged and paid for. It also requires enough staff to handle busy sales periods so that you can get purchases out of the doorMarketing If your online store is to be a success then people need to know about it and where to find it. At the very least your main charity website needs to be updated to include links to the online store pages.Legal implications All charities need to be aware of the legal implications of e-commerce, including understanding the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Consumer Contract Regulations which cover distance or off-premises sales.