eBay for charity enable donations on all sales
7/11/2008 at 17:02
eBay have announced a pilot scheme to allow a £1 donation on all purchases. At checkout buyers will have the option to ‘Give a Pound‘ to a featured charity and support a good cause even if the listing isn’t an eBay for Charity listing.
There is no choice of charity, but different charities will be presented to buyers each time they check out, and of the donation 95p will go directly to the charity with 5p covering the Missionfish processing costs.
Only buyers paying with PayPal will be able to donate, and the donation will appear as a separate transaction in their PayPal account. All a buyer has to do is tick the box for the donation to be collected.
eBay for Charity has raised over £6 million for good causes in the UK, if just a small percentage of buyers start donating a pound on their purchases this will be a huge boost for charities raising even larger sums in the future.
Gill says
5:58 pm on 07/11/2008
Hmmmm – I can see this is a good thing for charities, but I’m sorry, I think its a bit too intrusive.
I can also see the possibility of it backfiring and sellers ending up taking the flak.
Sue Bailey says
6:20 pm on 07/11/2008
“Add a £1 charity to my order”??
Oops.
Like Gill says, I can see sellers taking some flack for this. I’d like to see some choice in the charities offered – either by sellers or buyers, preferably both – and certainly buyers (and preferably sellers too) must be given the option to opt out of this forever.
Would also be good if eBay would publish a list of charities that might be supported by the scheme, because there are certainly some charities that I do NOT want anywhere near my checkout.
northumbrian says
6:22 pm on 07/11/2008
its about time ebay simply donated what they wish to a charity of their choice,
and stopped shoving the begging bowl up our nose
dave says
7:19 pm on 07/11/2008
eBay for Charity has raised over £6 million
Ebay itself has donated ???
Chris Dawson says
8:19 pm on 07/11/2008
#4 “eBay for Charity” as in the program, not eBay
I like Sue would like to veto certain charities, and in fact if I had a choice there is one charity in particular I’d be happy to have promoted on checkout from my auctions.
I’d also like to know if when I list an item on eBay for Charity and it sells that a competing charity (or possibly a charity with diametrically opposite aims) would definitely NOT be promoted at checkout.
One also has to wonder what will happen the first time a seller refunds a buyer and gets a neg for not refunding the (separate but linked to the transaction) £1 charity donation
Gill says
9:19 pm on 07/11/2008
What will happen is that the seller will be able to either like it or lump it, I expect…
northumbrian says
9:41 pm on 07/11/2008
charity and making money dont mix,
unless of course your a charity
Richard says
10:50 pm on 07/11/2008
I thought something was in the works. I got a survey about ebay for charity some weeks back.
In theory it’s not a bad idea, but I like to know exactly what charities i’m giving to. As has been mentioned it creates even more confusion for buyers thinking it’s the seller that’s put that on. It could even make people think the seller is trying to scam them.
FenLex says
10:57 am on 08/11/2008
” … there are certainly some charities that I do NOT want anywhere near my checkout.”
Exactly. One of those is Missionfish and its parent, the Points of Light Foundation.
northumbrian says
11:04 am on 08/11/2008
I dont want any charity anywhere near me or my living,
If I feel the need to be charitable ,
I have 3 sons, 2 daughters, 6 grand children and A wife,
and thats before Terry Wogan invades my living room with children in need
northumbrian says
11:14 am on 08/11/2008
I might add there are 190.385 Registered charities in the UK alone
with an income of 46.9 billion with investments or over 75 billion
collectively
they are bigger financial players than the high st banks,
there getting NOWT from me
the guy in the door way with his dog gets my dosh first
Eddie says
11:25 am on 08/11/2008
*wonders if eBay are shareholders of Points of Light Foundation ?*
FenLex says
11:30 am on 08/11/2008
No, eBay are not shareholders as far as I know. However, Points of Light is a US charity with, shall we say, a very particular outlook on the world.
Bev says
12:44 am on 09/11/2008
We’ve had our first customer this pm who didn’t want to make a donation, couldn’t see how to check out without making one and is emailing us asking us to sort it out because they think we’ve set it up.
Chris Dawson says
10:21 am on 09/11/2008
#14 That’s not good, but to be honest it’s a case of you have to tick the box to make a donation and if you don’t tick the box you won’t.
I’d recommend everyone buy something on eBay and at checkout you’ll be able to see how it works ticking/unticking the box. If you don’t want to make a donation it’s no problem, just pay for the item but at least you’ll know what your customers are seening.
ebuyerfb says
8:41 pm on 09/11/2008
@ # 15
I suspect that was the real reason all along. Think about it, if all sellers followed that advice they make an additional 1.3 million sales just by adding a little checkbox at checkout. Huge ROI.
KeithS says
2:24 am on 10/11/2008
I’ve seen this somewhere else in the last couple of weeks. Paid by paypal, may have been to a US seller but the donation was 20cents
Dan Wilson says
1:28 am on 12/11/2008
I saw this today and must confess to being confused. (Shame on me for not reading Tamebay before!)
This doesn’t seem like a good move on any level. I wanna pay: don’t make me think.
I had the option to donate a quid to a books charity. I have nothing against this in theory… but it did make me pause. And that’s bad in the checkout flow.
ebuyerfb says
3:25 am on 12/11/2008
@ # 18
It does look good PR wise and it does sound good on the surface until you actually think about it. I know here in the US it is common to see the convenience stores and retail chains offering a piece of paper for $1 claiming to be a donation for some charity.
I recently got a survey (I’m assuming most of you did) and it seemed like they wanted me to say the following:
“I like shopping at eBay because I can get a great deal and help out a good cause at the same time.”
I didn’t fall for it but I suspect this is what they are doing. eBay and PayPal both have a huge image problem and this is the eBay way of fixing it.
northumbrian says
7:51 am on 12/11/2008
its becoming the ebay equivalent of all those shop doorway beggars
not only is the begging bowl on checkout,
the SYI listing form has a charity or two lurking in the corner with its hand out
Jimbo says
10:09 am on 12/11/2008
Or the chuggers
Richard says
3:23 pm on 13/11/2008
Any donation I make is between me and my charity of choice. Grubby ebay and charity don’t mix. There’s a scam here somewhere as ebay do nowt for nowt.
Lisa Suttora says
7:17 pm on 13/11/2008
I just paid for a Christmas gift on eBay.com and was presented with the option to donate $1 for charity.
On eBay.com it does not indicate that the donation is not associated with the seller’s preferred charity.
Which is totally misleading to buyers.
There was no announcement of “this is a new program” “this is how it works” “This is an eBay sponsored program.” etc.
For those who shop on eBay and are familiar with sellers who donate a percentage of sales to charity – it is an easy leap to assume that by donating $1 you are supporting the efforts of the seller to raise money for a particular charity.
Which is exactly why I donated on this particular purchase. The seller was awesome and I wanted to do something to support what I thought were her efforts to raise money for a cause she believed in.
Not that the charity itself is not worthy, or that program is bad – but eBay needs to word this clearly upfront so buyers know exactly what program they are donating to.
eBay needs to message this completely differently.
I also don’t think that it should be a part of the seller’s checkout process.
This is an eBay program being implemented on an independent seller’s checkout flow, it once again blurs the line between eBay as venue and eBay as retailer.
Kate says
10:01 pm on 13/11/2008
I don’t like this idea at all, like other people have said, I will donate to charity if and when I want to, not because ebay shoves a box under my nose for some charity I don’t really support anyway.