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vkallum Jun 2, 2006

Morning

Last night I went to a dinner held by a friend as a fundraiser for a chaity walk she is doing later in the year.  In order to take part she has to raise £1500.00 and is working her socks off trying to get it.  It's an extremely worthy charity and I thought I might be able to help her out a little bit by auctioning a bear and then giving her all the proceeds from the sale.  The only thing is I'm not experienced with ebay but I think I remember reading somewhere that if you are running a charity auction you do need some sort of verification from the charity - I think she has a me page on the charities website - do you think a link to this would be enough?  I don't want to start the auction and then have it pulled   that would be a bit pants.  Or could I just have all the charity bit on a page on my website with a link to the ebay auction?  Perhaps Bid4Bears would be a better bet?

Also the other thing is, I don't ever sell on ebay, so I don't have a following there so to speak, so do you think I'd be better off just selling the bear at a fixed price from my website.

I won't be doing it for a few weeks yet, but thought it would be best to get prepared! :).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Helena Jun 2, 2006

Hi Vicky,

Yes, eBay changed their rules about Charity auctions a while ago, but I'm not sure how it works unfortunately. I know that you have to declare the charity somehow and go through their procedures to do it. Someone else will hopefully know better than me.

Even though you haven't sold on eBay before, your bears are gorgeous and would likely do well....I'd set a minimum price that I was happy with at the start of the auction, just to be on the safe side though.

If you have regular sales through your site that might the way to go - but if you need a quick sale then the auction sites are probably best. B4B would support you, I'm sure!

Gosh, not much help am I??!!! 

Good Luck!

vkallum Jun 2, 2006

Thanks Helena - no that really helps.

It's a tricky one - I'll see if I can find the ebay rules - it's just difficult not knowing which is going to be my best bet - I want to give my friend as much help as I can - £1500.00 is a lot to fundraise for one person!

Thanks again.

Helena Jun 2, 2006

Vicky, I went to check eBay for you...but it looks complicated doesn't it?

The guidelines are here: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/fundraising.html and from what I can understand, your friend would have to register with Missionfish: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/fundraising.html . I know that Missionfish has been criticised for it's role in all this (because they take a fee from each donation).

I think Bid4Bears would a better option - perhaps you could PM Nancy to ask her about it.

:hug:

vkallum Jun 2, 2006

Thanks Helena

I just looked at ebay - you're right - very complicated , I don't know how I could make the donation direct to my friend so she can reach her target.  It looks as if it would go straight to the charity, which I wouldn't mind but it wouldn't be of much help to her.  I'm not that impressed that Missionfish takes a fee either.   I'll go and check out Bid4Bears and then email Nancy.

Thank you!!!

All Bear Jun 2, 2006

Hi Vicky,

When I ran 'Dare to Care' in aid of the NSPCC, Ebay.co.uk advised me that they needed contact details for the charity, to include the person I was dealing with and the charity registration number.  They have a charity page for auctions, so it's definitely a good idea to provide them with the info they need, because they list charity auctions separately.  If you email them to tell them what you want to achieve, they'll get back to you with the relevant details.

I listed about forty bears, so it was quite a bit of work, but I didn't have any problems with Ebay and found them really helpful.  It certainly wasn't too complicated ... mind you, I didn't have to deal with anything called 'Missionfish' - my auction was in 2004, so maybe it took place before Missionfish became involved.

To be honest, if your work sells well from your website (which I know it does!) it would probably be easier to sell a piece direct from your site, making it clear on the site what you are hoping to achieve from the sale and why.  Ebay can be hard to predict and you may find you don't achieve the price you know you could easily achieve elsewhere.  I'm sure if you took nice pics of your charity bear and sent them to the mags with info, they'll be happy to include them in an issue with a link to your website to help you.

Hope that helps!

vkallum Jun 2, 2006

Hi Paula

Thanks for that - I was wondering if it would be OK to sell it direct - either in the form of a silent auction with bids by email or post or as a fixed price (I could have all the links to her webpage and the charity on the website).  If I get it ready early enough I could definitely send the details to the magazine editors ..... brilliant idea .  Cheque payments could then be made out to my friend or the charity, I need to check out how it works first.  If it's fixed at least my friend would know exactly how much she'll be getting towards her fundraising.   Hmmmmmm ............. I think I need to give it a bit more thought.  She's calling in this morning so we'll have a chat about it. 

Thanks again

Aleta - The Silly Bear Jun 2, 2006

Vicky, 
Make sure you post here on TT when and where the auction will be!!  I'd love to jump in on the bidding.     Also, please post when you have new bears on your site.  I just checked in and noticed you'll be listing the week of June 12.  I need a reminder notice!!

Warmest bear hugs,  :hug:
Aleta

vkallum Jun 2, 2006

Awwww :redface: , thank you Aleta  :rose:!

I'll definitely let you know.  My friend has to have raised the funds by the middle of September, so I'll aim for mid August I think.  I've just got to decide how I'm going to go about it.

I'm getting there with the website bears - I have quite a few that are in bits at the moment (that's not much use is it??).  We've had the school break this last week   so I'm hoping to get on and do the fun finishing off part next week.  You never know I might even manage to work out how to post some of them here on TT  !!

Thanks again. :hug: