Before Deciding to do an E-bay Auction
|
|
Make sure your board
of directors is fully on board with the project;
you will need their assistance and connections
to obtain items suitable to auction on e-bay.
Establish an e-bay auction committee consisting
of at least one board member, one staff member
and any other board members or volunteers willing
to help. |
|
Make sure you have someone knowledgeable
about E-bay auctions (or at the very least has
sold something on e-bay before); if you have no
board members of staff with any experience, find
someone in the community that will volunteer to
participate on your e-bay auction committee. |
Collecting Items
Don't waste time on small items that have specific set values.
People shopping on e-bay are shopping for bargains. Period.
They may be pleased that their purchases will be helping a
nonprofit but DO NOT expect them to spend over the value of
the item. This means you should not be soliciting donations
of gift baskets that sell at $49.95 at a particular store
- you are likely to get only $15.00 for it which would not
cover what it cost you in staff time to set up the listing
on e-bay. An E-bay auction is different than a silent auction
held in person amongst your usual donors (even then you don't
often get over the value of the items!).
DO aim for items that have NO set value; many nonprofits
work hard to get unique high-ticket items that really
pay off like a football or jersey signed by a famous
football player or box or VIP seats to a really popular
game or event where tickets are hard to get. Another
option that follows the "no set value" rule
would be an online garage sale through e-bay where
board members, donors, volunteers and staff go through
their garages or attics and donate older items that
may potentially be collectibles. This also has the
potential to raise larger amounts of money. Or if
your nonprofit runs a thrift shop - e-bay can be a
great outlet to sell those items that may be collectibles
that come through your store.
Keep it Simple
You really want to make the most amount of money with
the least amount of effort - so keep you event as
simple as possible. If it's your first time - focus
on just one large item or if you like the "online
garage sale" approach, have the people donating
also list the items for you from the comfort of their
homes; they do the photos, descriptions, list the
items and designate all or a portion of the proceeds
to go to your nonprofit. This is a great solution
that takes some of the workload off your staff BUT
you will need to track everyone to ensure they get
their listings done!
Marketing the Event
Because E-bay has such a large number of people accessing
their site daily, there really is no need to spend
marketing dollars getting people to come to your auction
- trust me - there will be people coming. You will
need to let your donors and other constituents know
but that can be accomplished inexpensively by advertising
on your website and sending out email reminders as
the event approaches.
E-bay's Giving Works Program
E-bay has a special program just for nonprofits called
E-bay
Giving Works. You can choose to do Direct Selling
(listing and selling the items yourself or Community
Selling where others list their items and donate proceeds
to your nonprofit (as in the Online Garage Sale example).
You register through Mission Fish which takes care
of the online payments and then your listings show
up on e-bay with a special ribbon indicating that
you are a nonprofit and a link to information about
your nonprofit (that you provided to Mission Fish).
The Mechanics of E-bay
There is a lot of discussion and debate amongst e-bay sellers
as to what is the best time and day to start your auction,
how small or big your opening bid and whether or not you should
have reserve limits. Here is the general consensus:
|
