How to master ecommerce

Charity retail contributed £363 million to UK charities in 2021/22, but the sector is evolving. Compulsory high street shop closures during the pandemic led charities to focus on ecommerce and, at the beginning of 2023, more than 13% of high street charity shops were empty.

Online selling platform, Shopiago, recently celebrated the best and most innovative online charity retailers from around the UK. We spoke to some of the winners to find out what other charities can learn from them.

Charity ecommerce trends

With the rise of pre-loved clothing sales apps like Vinted, some charities have noticed the value of clothing sales going down.

Chris Davies, Ecommerce manager at Prospect Hospice in Swindon, says, “unique items are where we get true value”. Davies and the Prospect House Team won the ‘highest value item sold’ award from Shopiago, having sold a vintage Leica camera for £2,062!

It isn’t just Prospect Hospice who’ve had luck with camera equipment either.Shopiago has noticed this as a trend across their charity clients in the past few months.

Talith Walker, Online Listing Lead at Scope and winner of Shopiago’s ‘Online Shining Star’ award, says, “electrical items sell really well”. Scope benefited from the recent trend for air fryers, for example.

Working with corporate partners to get donations of ex-lines is also a top tip from the Scope team. They work with Boden to sell new items from the Mini Boden range once they are out of season.

Maximising income

Once you’ve got your hands on a trending item, both Davies and Walker have tips on how to maximize your income.

Do your research

Davies recommends using the free Terapeak tool on eBay to research sold prices for similar items. In the case of their high-value vintage Leica, Prospect Hospice were contacted by a local enthusiast who helped them to create a detailed listing.

Use your title wisely

The first five words of your item title are the most important. Think carefully about the key words possible buyers might be using to search for items like yours. Make use of the full 80 characters available for the title of your listing – every word counts!

Take as many photos as possible

eBay has recently doubled the maximum number of images permitted for each listing from 12 to 24. Take as many compelling and detailed images as you can to help your item sell. Walker says, “I’m a stickler for visuals. I think eye-catching graphics, layout and consistency is key,” but also, “keeping it lighthearted…while adhering to brand values and not using complex jargon.”

Work collaboratively with your high street shops

Incentivising the Prospect Hospice shops team has been a game-changer for their ecommerce programme. Davies and his colleagues have worked out a system where the income from any high value items discovered by the shop but sold by ecommerce colleagues goes against the shop’s target. The hospice has seen a 118% year-on-year increase in online income.

Julia Brooksbank, Retail E‑Commerce and New Income Manager at DEBRA UK and winner of the Shopiago ‘Trade-in Shop of the Year’ award, says: “A bigger audience means a higher value. We can reach more customers online than we can in stores and this means that we can often command a higher value for collectable items. eBay’s auction format is a great way to get a true market value for a collectable item that is hard to price in-store.”

The DEBRA team has also found that introducing high street retail colleagues to services like Shopiago’s ‘trade-in’ has been a great way to engage them with a hybrid high street and ecommerce model.

Brooksbank says, “We have a huge amount of donated media (books, CDs, DVDs and video games). Shopiago’s Trade-in service is a key part of our ecommerce strategy as it allows us to turn these into revenue quickly and easily, often achieving a higher price per item than we would see in-store.”

Recruit the right people

According to Walker, you need patience, commitment, and motivation to succeed at ecommerce in the charity sector. Walker says: “Working for ecommerce in a charity is way different than working in ecommerce anywhere else. You have to be able to juggle a lot. Every day is different, but every day is busy!”

Finding people with experience in ecommerce and a passion for social justice is the easy part, it’s finding colleagues with the motivation and resilience to see each project through that’s harder. For Walker, it’s about “getting that balance between your passion for social justice…with having a business mindset and being sales driven”.

If your charity is thinking about ecommerce as a possible income stream, Brooksbank’s advice is: “It’s a learning curve – be prepared to try and to test. You’ll be surprised by what you learn.”