A great number of charity organizations and various nonprofits have limited possibilities to offer their services due to insufficient funds. They could do much better if they had better funding. Businesses and even individuals are eager to give what they have to such organizations in the form of gifts or any other available form. At the same time these nonprofits don’t have a method or scheme of realizing the donations and converting them into cash.

We, here at dropshiparea, are mostly interested in getting profit from selling products, nevertheless, such things as charity is always relevant. We don’t want to persuade you to turn charity into money-making. All we want to suggest is that if nonprofits could convert some of their donations into money, they could offer you much more useful and extensive services.

Fortunately, at least one good way of doing that has been found. It is eBay. Sean Milliken, founder of MissionFish.org (a company that cooperates with eBay) says:

“We saw how eBay was connecting buyers and sellers, and we thought that same model could work for nonprofit organizations by linking buyers and donors.”

eBay wants to help YOU help other people

eBay has made donations easier than ever:

• Charities are pre-qualified by eBay. It means that the 5000 signed up nonprofits are guaranteed not to promote hatred, violence, or terrorism of any kind. If a nonprofits wants to sign up it must prove to be legal and thus you can be sure that your donations go to reliable goals.
• There are specially designed platforms for charities (GivingWorks.EBay.com, EBay.com/Charity). Nonprofits go there and sell what they have been donated. At the same time if an individual buys an item he/she can choose to give from 10% to 100% of the sum to a nonprofit. If 100% goes as a donation eBay pays the insertion and final value fees associated with that listing.
• Goods sold by charities acquire special eBay tags. These tagged items are likely to sell faster as the tags tell the potential clients about the organization the are helping and other valuable data.
• In order to donate one can use stores and auctions. When you sell an item you are offered to donate money to some charity.

This is a working way of giving money and other donations to nonprofit organizations.

Milliken adds:

“When you think about the incredible marketplace eBay is — 30-some billion dollars transacted yearly — if we can get just a small percentage of that contributed to the nonprofit sector, we’ll m.ake a huge difference in the lives of the people and communities these organizations serve.”

Have you ever run across a blog browsing the Internet? Sure you have. What are blogs? Generally speaking, blogs are kind of Internet journals. The authors of blogs share their ideas and feelings with their readers (as a rule, in an informal tone). It looks like the authors have a friendly conversation with the audience. At the moment, blogs are incredibly popular over the Internet and they are gaining more and more popularity each day. But only few online retailers realize that blogs can be real assets for their e-business.

How to Start?

There are a number of ways to start your own blog. For instance, a free service like BlogSpot.com or Blogger.com. You need to set up an account and start blogging. In order to start a blog on your site you have to install some software (for example, SixApart.com).

Take your time to build a base of permanent readers. At the same time you can try the following technique: draw traffic to your own blog by posting and leaving comments on the relevant blogs. Go to a social bookmarking site (like propeller.com) and find blogs that have a similar topic as your own. Link to the blogs that have worthy content and can be useful for your readers. You can also contact the owners of these blogs and try to persuade them to link to your blog.

But let’s assume that you have a product site. It doesn’t mean that all you have to do is write about the product itself. Write about things somehow linked to your product.

Anthony Perry, BlogAds.com, says:

“You can make your customers feel empowered if you inform them to make their own decisions, as opposed to just beating them over the head, saying, ‘This is a great product! You should buy it!’”

3 Major Pluses of Blogging

A decent blog has a number of advantages:

1. Do you want to persuade your potential customers that there is a real person behind your site? The best way to do it is write blog entries. Blog can help you create the effect of customer trust and loyalty to your brand
2. If you give your clients useful knowledge they are more likely to return to your site. Experience shows that the more time clients spend on a site the more likely they will return there. If you are able to give your readers valuable information you will be able to sell them your products.
3. Feedback is king. Try to get as much feedback on your products, your site, and your customer service as possible. Your customers will leave comments and thus you will see what products they are interested in. Perry continues: “Blogging’s a tool that lets you communicate with your customer base in a way that’s far more intimate than a monthly e-newsletter.”

Here are a few pieces of advice for you to know how to act and hot NOT to act being an eBay auctioneer:

Have a look at your undertakings through your clients’ eyes

• Images

Never take vague and odd pictures. Create an impression of being a professional. Again think like your customer: would you want to deal with unprofessional seller? Certainly, no! So don’t be unprofessional yourself.

• Contact Info

Always include some contact information in your listings. If a customer sees that he can contact you any time and solve all the issues, he gets more confident in you as in a businessman. You can include email, and your phone number.

• Questions

Respond to all customers’ inquiries as soon as possible (if you can do it immediately – never postpone). Online clients want all and immediately. If it takes you more time than they are ready to spend, be sure they have already gone to another seller.

• Money

Never accept cash in mail. If you do, you won’t be able to prove anything. Use safe payment methods: credit card, PayPal.

• Prices

There are a number of good tools (HammerTap.com, Terapeak.com) that can help you set the prices. Research the market and find out what prices are reasonable and then follow your research in setting your own ones

• Prices once again

Never lower the price for an item by artificially inflating the shipping costs. If your shipping costs are higher than the cost of the item you sell but you on purpose mask it until the last moment, your customers will be unhappy and will most likely cancel the deal.

• What’s in the name?

Choose a good and credible ID name. Never try to follow the pattern like this: “cool4u” or “bestUcanGet”.

• Brand Names

Try to avoid the names of unknown brands in the titles. Over 60% of sales are made using the search function. Don’t use the names no one searches for.

• Names & Titles

Avoid misleading names in the title. If you sell sponges and you call them Sponge Bobs people will come and see that you deceive them. Do you think they will ever to a businessman who once proved ignorant?

Following these tips you can avoid common mistakes and start off your business successfully right from the very beginning.