Hospice eBay team deliver record sales
It’s not just in our charity shops where you can bag yourself a bargain and support patients in our care.
Sales through online platforms raised an incredible £49,550 during the 2023/24 financial year – a record amount.
The Hospice’s eBay site first launched in July 2007 and has since sold over 42,000 items, as well as building up a following of more than 4,000 people.
Based at our Clearance Outlet and Donation Centre in Ashton-under-Lyne, our online sales team – made up of staff and volunteers – takes pride in the service they provide, posting out items within a day of them being sold and establishing the Hospice as a top-rated seller on eBay.
The platform’s growth has certainly kept them busy.
“We can list anything from 30 to 50 items per day on average,” said Nicola DePetrillo, Online Sales Assistant.
“We list items sent to us by our shops every week – some can require research, which we use eBay and Google Lens to carry out.
“We sell on average between 100 and 150 items a week. I think the cost of living crisis is one reason why eBay has been so popular – people are looking for a bargain even more nowadays.”
Her colleague Dave Sadler added: “We set our own target of reaching 2,000 active items on the site, which we’ve come close to and have grown from an average of around 600. The more we grow the site, the busier it becomes. Around 80 per cent of what we sell are items listed for a week or less. It’s all about list, list, list for us.”
Our items attract sellers from all corners of the globe, including as recently as July when a Psion Executive PDA Organiser sold for £299 to a buyer in the United States.
“Only around two per cent of our sales are international but it opens up more options,” said Dave. “If we sell furniture or big items like a doll’s house, it will be collection only so we won’t offer postage – that probably happens on one per cent of the items we list.
“If we’re posting items, it’s always eligible to be posted across the world. We only charge our postage for items to get to eBay’s warehouse in Lichfield and eBay will charge extra postage to get it to wherever the buyer is.
“Every item we sell always has the option to be collected from the Distribution Centre to save on packaging costs.”
There have been some gems that have fetched some impressive proceeds for the Hospice including our patron Julie Goodyear’s jewellery range which raised over £16,000, a signed and framed Manchester United shirt which sold for around £2,000, and a stainless steel coffee machine for £180.
All items sold on eBay are generously donated by the local community, who can drop off clothing, books, CDs, DVDs, general bric-a-brac, electronics and ceramics at our Clearance Outlet and Donation Centre (based at Unit 4, Langham Street, OL7 9AX) on weekdays from 8am to 3.30pm.
Dave explained: “Around 90 per cent of items we sell are pre-loved – it’s very rare we get something brand new, which is usually clothing with a label or an unopened jigsaw puzzle.
“The most popular item we sell is probably clothing but books also do really well, they are very easy to list and pack. We try to build collections of particular items, like the Now CDs, where space allows so we can then sell them as a set and hopefully they will be worth more.”
Nicola added: “We need things that are in a good, clean sellable condition. If you are thinking of donating items, ask yourself is it in a good enough condition for me to buy it from a charity shop.”
The team closely monitor feedback they receive – of which 99.8 per cent is positive, according to eBay – and have lots of repeat customers.
To help provide an efficient service, they are also environmentally conscious when it comes to packaging items.
“We used donated cardboard boxes so when people bring stuff in a box we ask if we can use it, which also helps for recycling,” Nicola told us. “We also receive a £10 voucher every month from eBay to buy plastic bags to pack items in.”
Dave explained further: “We would gratefully receive donations of shoe boxes or standard square and rectangular boxes to help with packaging, as well as bubble wrap. We also have a company based in Royton who deals with pianos and has shipments over from Japan which come bubble wrapped so he saves all of that for us so we never have to buy it.”
There are other ways that people can support the Hospice through eBay.
People can sign up to Gift Aid, if eligible, when donating items so they can be worth more to Willow Wood at no extra cost to you.
Sellers on eBay can also donate a percentage of their profits to Willow Wood Hospice – by typing the percentage of your choice and selecting Tameside and Glossop Hospice Limited in the drop-down menu.
Our online retail offering extends beyond eBay as our team have diligently explored other ways of generating as much income as possible for the Hospice.
“We sell scrap metal as well as use Vintage Cash Cow which buys old precious metal, jewellery, watches and cameras,” said Dave.
“If we can’t sell them on eBay, we sell DVDs, CDs and books on Ziffit. We send them off once a week and it can raise around £50 a week on average.
“We use Discogs to sell vinyl records. It was set up when vinyl was a bigger thing and we still have lots of items on there but we don’t really list new items on there as you can’t beat eBay for the number of members it has.”
Keep an eye out for news coming soon about how our eBay team were involved in a historic delightful discovery…
