Oxfam launches Britain's 'first online charity shop'
Howard Lake | 14 September 2007 | News
Oxfam has launched what it claims to be Britain’s first online charity shop. Starting with 50,000 items for sale and rising to 120,000 by Spring 2008, the shop is expected to generate £2 million a year for the charity.
Oxfam’s Online Shop features donated items such as clothes, books, music, household goods and collector’s items such as stamps and coins, together with over 100 new Fair Trade goods, such as jewellery, gifts, chocolate and coffee. It also features the alternative gift range Oxfam Unwrapped.
Specialist online volunteers “from students to silver surfers” have selected and uploaded the items for sale, which are being sold at fixed prices, and will continue to add new items to the site every day. More Oxfam shops will be taking part over the next few months.
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Initial items for sale include Armani, Diesel and Frank Usher clothes, a signed Thomas the Tank Engine annual, a first edition of The Importance of Being Ernest, a Roxy Music record, and a 1960s Jack in a Box.
Oxfam has developed valuable experience in online sales over the past seven or eight years. In the last financial year alone, it raised £300,000 by selling on eBay and Abe Books.
Oxfam Shop Manager Jill Whittingham from Nantwich Cheshire said: “By taking part in this, we can showcase a range of our goods to customers throughout the UK as opposed to only our local area and we expect to increase the amount we raise as a result. This can only be good news as it will mean we can provide more funds for Oxfam’s life changing work.”
In 2006-2007, Oxfam’s 750 or so shops and its network of 22,000 shop volunteers raised £19.6 million.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.