I apologize in advance if these questions have been addressed already, I just don't think I'm clear on the whole process.
So people decide to donate some items, they send their items to the person running the auctions. Ok. Then what happens?
Does the person running the auctions: Photograph the items? Write the text with all the pertinent info? List the items using her eBay account (which means she's also paying the listing fees, yes?)
I'm assuming that upon close of auction, it is she who communicates with the winning bidder? Accepts payment and prints out an invoice? Packs the item? (using her own packaging materials?) Ships the item? Gets to deal with irrate customers (if any), and handles any problems that may arise?
Everything except the listing fees. I've been taking the listing fees out of the proceeds, but to sorta balance that out, I'm not actually transferring anything to me for the shipping costs-I do that out of pocket and just group the charges into the rest of the proceeds. So the shipping charges are really covering the listing fees, and I'm covering the shipping. I'm not sure that came out understandable. And this is just me, I don't know how anyone else does it.
Oh, and as soon as I get an ink cartridge for my printer, I'll be able to print invoices.
That's essentially how I did it too - and that's why I asked for cash donations to help pay for shipping (or shipping supply donations). I didn't print out invoices - instead I printed out small thank you notes with Rebekah's website URL on them. Less ink, less paper. Candace, if you need some more of those, let me know and I can print some off for you.
Don't feel weird!!! People here are right - this is a group thing. Let me tell you that if I had paid for all the shipping, I would have been out at least a hundred dollars if not more. You have to either take it out of the proceeds or have people help out. When I was doing this, several people donated just to help with shipping/listing fees. I ended up covering some of it, because I wanted to, but you don't need to cover it all. There are also PayPal fees and ebay final value fees to think about. If people pitch in just a couple of dollars, it should help take care of it. Or you can just subtract it from the proceeds.
Basically, here's a breakdown of a normal Rebekah auction:
ebay listing fee: $0.55-$0.75 depending on what price you start at. Let's say for argument that the final value of the auction is $15.00. ebay charges a final value fee of about $0.80 for that. Then, the winner pays via PayPal, and they charge about $0.75 for that. Then, we can charge the winner $1.50 for shipping, which hopefully covers the fees associated with that, but usually doesn't. If we assume it costs $1.50 to ship one item, including envelopes, packing supplies, postage, etc., we can call that a wash. So for each auction, you have a cost of at least $2-$3, and it will be more if the auction ends at a higher price. The lower the auction price, the higher percentage the cost is, so it is in fact better if the auctions end higher and you can take the costs out of the proceeds. Rebekah gets more money still, and you aren't going broke from the costs.
I kept a spreadsheet so that I didn't go crazy. :)
I'd mentally shelved my horror at eBay auction fees. Not counting the final value fees for the current auctions, the cost is already over 30 bucks. It's sick, and I was paying the shipping costs myself because I didn't want to take that much more out of the proceeds, yanno? I have come to the conclusion, hoever, that if I don't let the auctions be as self supporting as possible, then I won't be able to do them at all, and then there would be MORE waiting while we find someone else, or a total loss if no one else could step up. So yeah, I'm getting it:) I've got a spreadsheet going too. Otherwise, I'd go even more..wait, how did Adam put it? Slightly insane.
That does seem like the best way to go. It is pretty low overhead for a charity, if you think about it. I mean, you're not getting paid at all. All of the net profit is going to the intended source. As much as we'd like to see every penny go directly to Rebekah, it's not going to happen that way. You're doing a fantastic job, and I support you whole heartedly!
Exactly!! Which is why we need everyone who can bid to do so. I know some of those things you have will go for a nice price. There's some gorgeous stuff there. The costs will seem like small change when you add up all the money we are earning for Rebekah. We've raised over a thousand dollars already, and that's after we take out costs. And if you can put up a PayPal button on Rebekah's page, I will donate some cash for expenses and such!
Wait! There's a funky 3 dollar shipping charge included in that donation button, so please, factor that in if you are going to donate. I thought it had been taken off, but PayPal doesn't like me. I'll see what I can do to get that offa there. Thanks, folks:) ~Candace~
I've sent new coding for the button to my Web Mistress (Miss Starlia) and as soon as she awakens from her beauty sleep and stumbles to her laptop, she'll have it:) With any luck, this 18 millionth attempt will work--we worked on it for two days a while back, and thought it was fixed.
Wow! That's quite the daunting task! Please (everyone) take this in the spirit in which it is intended.
Why does *one* person have to run these auctions? Wouldn't it be more practical if each person who donated ran their own auctions? I realize that not everyone has an eBay account, but then those people could have someone else run their donations/auctions for them... like a buddy system of sorts.
Two people with no eBay would be partnered with one who does, and so on. Then the "leader" of this three-person group informs her partners upon close of auction where the item should be sent to, and the partner mails out her own item. Also, many folks post pictures of their work, that means they can also take pictures of their donated item/s and email them to their leader. Photographing items is not an easy job, why not share the burden?
I can see the benefit of having all auctions housed under one roof, so to speak, but I'm just thinking, wouldn't the whole thing be more manageable if it was broken down into little groups of three or four? Then the leaders of each group (those whose eBay accounts are being used to list auctions) could be listed/linked on the Princess page on Starlia's website?
As I mentioned before, I apologize if this has already been discussed to death, but I was just reading through the other "Rebekah auctions" thread and I was astounded that this *huge* project would be the responsibility of just one person. I'm coming from the angle of often not having enough time in a day to do everything I need to do... and I don't even have little ones at home! I do run auctions, though, so I know how time consuming it is to have to photograph, write text, and then go through the whole listing process on eBay.
Anyway, just a suggestion. A job-well-done pat on the back goes out to past and present "charity auction runners" for all their hard work! :)
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