The list of gadgets, which went on sale today, include a Samsung Galaxy Tablet, HP TouchPad (now a collector’s item after HP ceased production), Kobo eReader, HTC Flyer Tablet Computer, Nokia Lumia 800 and HTC Sensation

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There’s a whole lot of art up for grabs including Wallace and Grommit, Shaun the Sheep, Simon’s Cat and Roger Rabbit. If you fancy getting your hands on some original artwork from a well known animator take a look at the other pieces up on auction. The auctions run until the 11th November.

The team of Really Nice Pinks experiment will see how much money they can raise on eBay on by 3pm today for Breast Cancer Awareness. Trading as “A Kiss From A Pink” there are some weird and wacky items including Lunch with Clare Gilmartin EU Marketplaces Vice President, lunch with Markus Scheuermann, Director Business Sellers, lunch with Angus McCarey, eBay’s Senior Director Seller Experience and meeting Miriam Lahage, Global Head of eBay Fashion (If you sell in apparel you really want to win this one to get some advice from the top!).

Theses eBay listings not only support some great charities, but if you want to bend the ear of some top eBay execs or to pick their brains this is an ideal opportunity. Alternatively they’ve got some cutesy items up including White Panda Novelty Earphones, Yellow Ducks Novelty Earphones and the star of the show, A Kiss from a Pink signed postcard.

Remember – its all in a good cause, and the Really Nice Pinks are going to try and put themselves out there to make a bit of money for a great charity, so be gentle on them if you spot any policy infringements in their listings (but feel free to dish their listings on TameBay and let us know what you think of them). More importantly dig deep in your PayPal account and support the Really Nice Pinks to raise some funds for Breast Cancer Awareness.

Be quick though, you’ve only got until 2.30pm today to make your offers or click the Buy It Now button!

This morning I received an email from an apparent ‘Charity’ representative asking if I could give a special discount on a number of items. This is not the first such email I have received and I thought I would share my thoughts on the matter.

Firstly I personally support several charities and believe that giving by either donating or fund raising is a good thing. My favourite charity shop gets all my unwanted stock and returns and I will continue to support those charities which have significance to me.

I don’t donate a percentage of sales income to any of the charities available through eBay because I prefer to keep business and my charity work separate.

One American customer who I communicated with sent me $100 via my Paypal selling account for one of my charities which he also supports. The money was very welcome but it created a minor blip in my accounts and although not currently VAT registered I wouldn’t want to reach the threshold because I had combined business and charity fund raising.

I also didn’t want to engage in emails back and forth with this apparent ‘Charity’ representative to verify if they were legitimate, and to be quite honest their record of feedback left for others put me right off the possibility of dealing with them.

I believe that although business should support charities there should be clear distinction between the two.

Editors Note: Glenn is correct about the complications of charity fund raising/donations from a tax perspective. If you want to make charitable donations from your business you will need to read up on the HM Revenue & Customs documents “Gifts to charity made by companies” and “VAT implications of Giving to Charity by Businesses“. In fact any disposal (including giving away) of business assets is normally considered as supplying goods and you will have to account for VAT on the disposal.
 
It is often simpler, as Glenn suggests, to make a personal donation with Gift Aid or to specifically list items on eBay with a donation through eBay for Charity listed on your personal eBay account, not your business selling account.

Harvey Nichols are working with celebrated fashion blogger Disneyrollergirl, on this “Secret Tees” project. Disneyrollergirl launched in 2007 as an ‘anonymous fashion insider’ blog whilst a full time fashion director on a magazine in London. She thought about her favourite designers whose work she loves and has invited each of these to create a one-off exclusive design.

There are seven designers and seven T-Shirts, but which “Secret Tee” was designed by which designer? There are some clues in the auctions so you might be able to figure it out, but in the meantime if you want to choose your favourite and bid on one of the Secret Tees all proceeds will go to support Kids Company though eBay for Charity.

Nike is only releasing 1,500 pairs of the Nike Mag and the only place you’ll be able to get them is by bidding on eBay. The Nike MAGs feature an electroluminescent outsole, space-age materials and a rechargeable internal battery good for 3,000 hours.

Prices look like rocketing into the $1000s, if not 10s of $1000s, and size 10 appears to be the most sought after attracting the highest prices.

All proceeds from the auctions will go to benefit Marty McFly actor Michael J. Fox’s charity – the Michael J. Fox Foundation. The foundation is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease which Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with in 1991.

Sadly you can only bid on these auctions if you’re based in the US, but for those that are there will be 150 pairs of Nike MAG shoes auctioned each day from the 9th – 18th September.

eBay say that last year 1.3 million people made donations and if all eBay users who’ve donated at eBay checkout make a Gift Aid declaration, UK charities would receive more than £1 million.

If you want to select your favourite charities so that they will be promoted for you to donate to when you checkout on eBay you can set them in your charity donation account in eBay.

This year is no exception, although the final bid of $2,345,678.00 failed to break the record. There must be a recession on as the winning bidder was apparently more than happy to bid higher, but there just wasn’t anyone willing to bid against him to push the price up. The bidder has however pledged to raise the amount to $2,626,411 – $100 more than last years total.

Whilst the bid won’t make the official eBay record book as the highest at least the buyer can have the satisfaction of the biggest donation as they sit down to the steak which just cost them $300,000 more than it needed. As always the money raised goes to the Glide Foundation.

The grants will provide funding for charities to set up an online trading or fund raising business, or grow an existing online trading business, by taking advantage of platforms such as eBay for Charity to raise unrestricted funding for their charity.

During the trial, two grants of up to £10,000 are available, with a view to exploring demand. If more than two sufficiently high quality applications are received, MissionFish may make further funds available to support them.

247 TopSeller, an eBay ecommerce solutions provider, have agreed to support the charitable grants with a year’s ecommerce consultancy and advice, and a high-quality design upgrade and accompanying hosting and support. 247 TopSeller will also offer to develop a Webstore, if required, at a highly subsidised cost.

Whilst £10,000 sounds like a lot of money to set up a new eBay online business if a charity needs to recruit new staff, set up storage or transport for collection of donated goods it will soon be swallowed up. It’s going to be interesting to see how the chosen charities make use of the funds and how the £10,000 assists them in increasing their online fundraising.

Charities interested in starting a new online fundraising venture have until the 31st July to submit their MissionFish Online Business Grant Application Form.

MissionFish has been acquired from the Points of Light Institute and initially they’ll continue to work with Points of Light to process and deliver eBay.com donations. For the future eBay will be setting up a new nonprofit, staffed by members of the MissionFish team which will be responsible for donation handling. (MissionFish is already a registered charity in the UK).

As well as any funds donated MissionFish also process Gift Aid where the seller is a UK tax payer. Using Gift Aid means that for every pound you give, the charity will receive an extra 25p from the Government.

MissionFish is funded by a deduction from donated funds processed. In the UK their take is between 3% and 20% (their average take is under 15%). They do not charge charities for registering with MissionFish to receive donations, any fees to Charity Direct Sellers for using eBay for Charity and charge no commission on Gift Aid, which is passed on in full. MissionFish has no shareholders and any surpluses generated are reinvested in fulfilling its charitable purpose.

Charities Direct indicate that MissionFish in the UK has an income of £2.82m with expenditure of £2.63m leaving a surplus of £190,000.

It’s never made much sense to me that eBay for Charity and MissionFish were separate organisations, especially as Charities Direct indicates MissionFish in the UK are headquartered in eBay’s Richmond Offices anyway. Whilst it’s a given that a separate organisation is needed to administer charity donations it makes sense for MissionFish and eBay for Charity to work closely together.

However I’m still confused as to the ultimate aims of eBay for Charity – there are three possible options, none of which appear to be fully exploited:

1. To be used to increase sell through rates on eBay – Personally I have no qualms in admitting that I’ve used eBay for Charity purely to raise the profile of my eBay listings, and to drive traffic from an eBay for Charity listing to my eBay shop and other listings. However I don’t see eBay making full use of eBay for Charity to increase sell through rates or to achieve higher average selling prices.
2. To be used as a PR opportunity on eBay – If the ultimate aim of eBay for Charity is for PR purposes then it’s not being maximised. eBay have run many “high profile” auctions over the years and still do on a regular basis, but they’re not always widely publicised, even within the eBay community. The Daily Deals get more promotion than eBay for Charity events.
3. To raise as much money as possible for charity – Whilst those working directly within eBay for Charity are wonderful people, I’m not sure that eBay as a corporate company puts helping charities at the top of their priorities. That’s not to say eBay for Charity hasn’t raised a fantastic amount of money for good causes (over $241 million since the program started), but it could raise a lot more if this was eBay’s aim for the program. To put the $241 million raised over eight years into perspective, eBay reported $551 million free cash flow during the first quarter of 2011

eBay need to decide exactly what they want from their charity program, but I’m not sure that they have yet figured out where it sits within the organisation or what their aims for charity programs are. Hopefully the acquisition of MissionFish will raise the profile of charitable giving within eBay, and they’ll decide what the ultimate aim of the charity program is to be.

Each egg is individually crafted in a Faberge style reflecting the personality of the celebrity. All funds raised from the auctions will go to support Royal Blind, who fund essential services for the education, care, training and employment of children and adults in the UK who are blind or visually impaired.

Sadly and unusually for a high profile eBay for Charity set of auctions they’ve listed the eggs using “Freight” for carriage. This means even UK bidders won’t know how much they may be stung for delivery. The eggs can be shipped world-wide, but it shouldn’t have been too onerous to figure out how much carriage would cost, at least for UK delivery.

Currently the Jolomo and Michael Ball have the highest bids at over £250 each, and it’s a great cause so eBay are also promoting the Royal Blind as the check-out charity of the week so everyone that makes a purchase on eBay can donate even if they don’t bid on the auctions.

The result is well over 200,000 page views, 75 bids more than doubling the original £300 cost of the suit when new, and attention from the suit manufacturer.

The auction is drawing so much attention that XCEL Wetsuits in Hawaii, who manufactured the wetsuit, have are very kindly donating a BRAND NEW 2011 Drylock wetsuit to the auction so the winner gets both the used urine free wetsuit and a brand new suit in a size of your choice. DryRap are also donating one of their special change towels so if you’re up for some surfing this summer you’ll be well kitted out with this auction.

What I do like is that the seller has chosen to donate 90% of the sale price to Good Gifts: Help for the Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims. The only reason it’s not 100% is to cover the postage costs as the auction is free post.

If you’ve got a few minutes to spare the auction description is well worth a read, if you’re a surfer get bidding to get your hands on the brand new 2011 Drylock wetsuit which isn’t even available in the UK yet.

There are over 100 auctions which end this coming weekend, some of which are for a celebrity to boost your twitter profile by following retweeting and mentioning you and others with added bonuses such as meeting the celebrities or some of their personal memorabilia.

Currently the auctions with the most bids are the 1994 Fiat yellow Cinquecento from the hit TV show The Inbetweeners, a day of either football, cricket or a girlie night out with Lily Allen and a follow on Twitter from McFly. “The most dangerous woman in London”, Caitlin Moran, is offering her winner an hour in the pub with a bottle of champagne & 20 Silk Cut, her Sixteen Best Gossip Stories Ever, and (the auction says) if you’re good looking, there might even be some snogging!

One of my personal favourites would be a day on set, train and stay in the same hotel as Location, Location, Location presenter Kirstie Allsopp with her co-star Phil. Phil is always up for a pint and, if you’re after some house hunting advice, they’re definitely the couple you want to talk to.

All of the money raised from the auctions goes directly to Comic Relief and of course if you win one of the auctions you get to boast of your new best friend on Twitter.

Much of the increase is due to the donate at checkout feature launched in 2008. That has since been coupled with the “My Favourite Charity” feature which gives you the choice to donate to a charity that you support when buying on eBay. Users who pre-select a favourite charity are 17 times more likely to donate at checkout than those who haven’t and that led to a 100% increase in donations from 2008 to 2009 (£3.3 million to £6.3 million).

It appears despite the recession buyers and sellers are still finding spare funds to support charities through their eBay activity. It’s also on a purely mercenary level worth remembering that even donating a small percentage of your selling price gets you greater exposure in search. Your item will have the charity ribbon displayed next to it and will be featured in the eBay for Charity pages where buyers who specifically want to support a charity will find your listing in preference to those not making a donation.

From the same seller you could win a pair of ladies DVB jeans signed by Victoria Beckham, an England football shirt signed by all the players who were in the 2010 World Cup, or even the holiday of a lifetime in Kenya.

There are currently over 100,000 items listed on eBay for Charity, where some or all of the money goes to helping good causes and best of all many of these items are unique one off items and could be the perfect gift this Christmas.

There’s a minimum of £1 donation, but you can list with any start price. Of course eBay already waive the same percentage of insertion and final value fees for any listings using eBay for Charity if your item sells, but this takes away the up front risk of listing more expensive items.

The promotion is not open to Business Sellers or PowerSellers and their are a few category restrictions. It runs for items listed between Friday 19th and Sunday 21st November so if you’ve got some unwanted possessions you’ve been meaning to get shot of list them with a donation to Children in Need and get some extra exposure on eBay.

Originally created in 1920 for the Daily Express to compete with rival newspaper’s comic strips, Rupert has outlasted them all. The one-of-a-kind Steiff 52cm tall Rupert Bear on auction has a hand stitched nose and mouth, has fully jointed head and limbs and of course the famous button in the ear and Steiff tag.

Unusually for a charity auction there appears to be a reserve price although in the first 12 hours bids have already reached £800 the reserve has not yet been met.

The Rupert the Bear auction runs from the 7th to 14th November, and proceeds go to the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign who have a long standing association with Rupert.

The winners of the grants are:

• 1st prize: Cancer Research UK (4,707 votes) – £5,000
• 2nd prize: Dogs Trust (2,856 votes) – £3,000
• 3rd prize: NSPCC (2,752 votes) – £2,000

eBay for charity have raised over £20 million for UK charities. You can still choose your favourite charity and support them whenever you buy and sell on eBay. You can donate a percentage of the sale price of any item you list on eBay, or as a buyer you can make an optional donation at checkout each time you make a purchase.

To nominate your favourite charity is simply, just visit the promotion page, find the charity you want to support and make them your favourite.

Once you’ve you’ve nominated your favourite charities eBay will display one of them each time you buy or sell on eBay giving you the option to donate. You can donate a percentage of the sale price of any item you list on eBay, or as a buyer you can make an optional donation at checkout each time you make a purchase.

Even if you don’t donate directly through eBay make sure you favourite any charities that you support off eBay to give them a chance of winning.

A Football used in the world cup final between Spain and the Netherlands is up for sale on eBay and is currently sitting with bids in excess of £50,000.00. The auction ends tonight at just gone 5pm so if you’re in the market for a bit of unique footballing memorabilia it’s not to late to get your bids in.

All the money raised will go to Nelson Mandela’s 46664 Charity. If £50k for a football is too much for your budget check out the other world cup football items Adidas has for sale to support the cause.

The promotion is for Saturday 3rd – Sunday 4th July, and is only open to UK residents who are registered as private sellers. Full details are on the charity free listing promotion page on eBay.

Warren Buffett is CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, an investment company and is reknowned world wide for his successful investment strategies and is ranked the third richest person in the world at a estimated fortune of $47 billion.

In the UK a random (eBay chosen!) charity is suggested with the option to donate £1 by clicking a box whenever you pay for an item. In the US users can choose their favorite charity or charities and they will have the option to donate between $1 and $25 each time they make a purchase.

Importantly for eBay.com users there will also be the option to opt out and not have the collection tin rattled in their faces every time they make a purchase on eBay. I like this, I do support a few charities chosen for personal reasons, but I want to choose when to support them but loathe being badgered for donations. Also eBay have yet to make it crystal clear what happens to buyers who make a donation and subsequently are refunded by the seller – it’s not the seller requesting the donation, it’s eBay.

Hopefully at some point in the near future the UK version of charity in checkout will be upgraded to the US version and I’ll be able to choose the charities I want to donate to…. I’d probably even start donating at checkout if I could choose the charities I want to support.

The auction prizes have been donated by door-to-door delivery company myHermes, to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity through eBay for Charity and run until Sunday 14th February. Mika Hakkinen, who is a brand ambassador for myHermes said “I am a father of two myself and appreciate the importance of the work which Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity does for sick children. I sincerely hope that we will be able to raise a lot of funds”.

So if you’re a budding racing driver or simply fancy tearing round the track at Mercedes-Benz World in a 6.2 litre V8 Mercedes AMG with a Formula 1 legend at the wheel get bidding now. You might have to outbid Sue though, she’s a big fan of Mika and wanted to write this post but it would have been too XXX rated

All of the auctions also include a 3 course lunch with Mika, as well as an off-road driver training session with a Mercedes-Benz driving specialist. The driving sessions will take place on the 24th February, just 10 days after the auctions finish at Mercedes-Benz world in Surrey. If you’re planning to bid make sure you give yourself the day off work!

Disclosure: myHermes advertise with TameBay

To mark the partnership, eBay is launching with a special charity auction in aid of youth charity, The Prince’s Trust. During January 30 InterContinental Hotel Presidential Suites will be sold on 99p no reserve auctions with 100% of the final price being donated through eBay for Charity.

The Octopus Travel shop will be promoted on eBay through a combination of paid search and targeted advertising across eBay.

eBay Advertising

eBay Advertising is a program where brands can offer compelling messages to the eBay community. The proposition is that as eBay users are primarily visiting the site to buy and sell, in general they are are more receptive to commercial messages than nearly anywhere else on the web. As a side bonus many of the campaigns also include an element of fund raising through eBay for Charity.

Previous campaigns have included The Sun Help The Heroes, which delivered 100 million banner impressions in 10 days, 7 million home page banner views, 712 thousand auction views and raised over £80,000 for the charity.

Mercedes promoted the Mercedes Benz E-Class and achieved 28 thousand opt ins to receive further marketing messages and finance brands such as Experian and Cetelem say that the click through rates for eBay media campaigns are much higher than adverts on other venues.

If you’ve been wondering what proposition eBay was selling to companies who have been purchasing banner ads on eBay then the eBay Advertising page is well worth a read. Do you think co-branded adverts with eBay and advertising partners are good for the site and will making eBay a great destination for hotel bookings increase sales for eBay sellers?

Possibly the most interesting question has to be whether the advertising partnerships are more important to eBay from a revenue perspective, or is the overriding aim to increase the value proposition of eBay to buyers and make the site more sticky?