Earn Regular Income with an Online Store
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Being a State based charity or, being a local group or service can make fund raising very difficult due to the perceived small catchment area you have to seek donations from. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
However, this strategy also applies to larger National non-profit organisations as well.
Fundraising Strategies for Large or Small Non-profits
This fundraising strategy will take your fund raising national or even global. For a small local group, this could be all that you need and for a national or state based organisation, it could provide a large slice of your income needs.
I’m talking about setting up an online eCommerce store.
Some charities have already done this. I’ve seen them on their website, here is an example of one at the Cancer Council. But for a smaller organisation this looks like a lot of work, and it is. Plus it requires a lot of technical expertise.
Best Digital Fundraising Strategy
There are two very important things I want to tell you about online stores.
The first is, I know you are thinking we are just too small and don’t have the contacts to source the items nor the expertise or time to run the website and ship the goods.
That’s good because we offer a done for you solution. And I don’t mean we set it up and then leave you to sink or swim. We set it up, source the products, run the store and do all the fulfilment. We partner with you to make sure it works, not just technically but we also do a lot of the marketing as well.
So what do you do?
Two things,
- You promote it to your members and supporters and participate in the social media promotions, mainly by adding comments, likes and shares.
- You bank the money you earn.
We promote it to the world, so now your fundraising is global.
Your Online Store Product Range
The second most important item is, what products should we provide in the shop? That is really the most important consideration and the one where we can provide the most benefit. We have access to the full range of products from:
- Automobile and security
- Beauty and Hair
- Books, Movies and Music
- Clothing
- Electronics
- Fashion Accessories
- Gadgets
- Home and Garden
- Kids – toys, clothing, accessories and more
- Leisure
- Mums and Kids
- Phones Tablets and accessories
- Shoes and Bags
- Sports and Outdoors
- Sunglasses
And that is just to mention a few. I’m sure you can see we can put together a shop that will appeal to your target market and a lot more.
Best Fundraising Strategies Non Profit Organizations,
The first thought many organisations have is “Wow, we can have a department store that appeals to everyone”. But unfortunately, experience proves that that doesn’t work.
The best results by far, come from targeting your store to a particular niche. That makes it a lot more effective to market and the customers know where to go to get “XYZ” (whatever the niche is that you choose).
Of course, there is nothing stopping you from having two or more stores. So once we have one up and running, you can branch out into another one.
Online store sales are growing, but the secret to success in 2017 is not to just get it out there and see how it performs. The most successful online retailers are strategic and targeted in their efforts.
Say “No” to Hard Work and “Yes” to Better Fund Raising
Effectively targeting a ready-to-buy audience, though, requires solid data and statistics on your customers. For most small and mid-market online businesses, expertise is low and resources even sparser. Conducting such high-level research to gain a full view of who buys what, where and why is costly and heavy on time. So it is lucky we do that for you as well.
Australia Post on Why This Fundraising Strategy Works
Australia Post has released some fantastic data on the state of Online Retail in Australia for 2016. In short, what it says is;
Online retail continues to evolve and mature, creating great opportunities for Australian businesses (and we say, that includes non-profits who grasp this opportunity).
While Australians have traditionally been accustomed to the familiarity of buying goods in a bricks -and- mortar store, the trend for growth is clear. During Christmas 2015, the busiest time of the year for online shopping, 53% of Australians bought online, which highlights the strong potential for growth in the Australian online shopping market.
Growth in online spending on physical goods exceeded bricks-and-mortar by 1.8%.
As Australia’s fondness for online shopping continues to grow, and previously untapped sections of the Australian population become more comfortable with online shopping, the shift towards digital (online shopping) will accelerate.
Australians spent $19 billion online in 2015 – which was 12% higher than the previous year – with digital services (Information products, eBooks, music etc. that you can down load) contributing around a quarter of that amount. In the same period, online spending on physical goods increased by approximately 6.3%, compared to bricks-and-mortar spend which only increased by 4.2%
The full report goes into much more detail and if you would like to read it, you can download it below.
Finally, I would like to look at some of the factors that influence whether or not people will buy from an online store and show how Community Funding Strategies addresses them. Quite frankly, I believe these are major reasons why you should partner with us rather than try to go it alone.
Influencing Factors on Whether Potential Shoppers Buy or Not
- The top three factors that are very or extremely influential in determining where people shop are price (87%), shipping cost and speed (80%) and discount offers (71%).
Our products are good quality and extremely competitively priced so your customers will be happy.
72% of females and 59% of males decided to abandon their purchase because of shipping costs. We can offer free Shipping or a mix of free and paid. The choice is yours to make.
Offering discounts is huge but we take this a step further. You can offer discount coupons either on your website, App or Mobile website (most effective) or send them to individual customers of your choice. The main thing is, your organisation gets the kudos for providing the discount coupon but we negotiate the discount with the sellers so it costs you nothing.
- Almost a quarter of online shoppers (23%) are influenced by social media recommendations and reviews.
We set up a variety of social media accounts for each shop for example on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. Visitors to those sites can buy directly from the social media site or be sent to the shop.
We can even set up a shop on sites like Facebook where Facebookers can see a range of products and buy them without leaving Facebook.
One of the things you do to help with the promotion of your online store is add comments on the social media accounts we set up to promote your shop. These can be about any purchases you make or even just that you like a product and share it with your friends. Of course, you should encourage your friends, supporters and members to do the same.
- 42% of online customers find recommendations from friends and family influential, that’s twice the number who cite advertisements as influential when determining where to shop.
Your main task is to recommend your online shop to your supporters and ask them to recommend it to their friends and family.
- Online shoppers want products to be brought to life with images (78%) and product reviews (69%).
We ensure there are always great images for every product and where feasible a video as well.
We allow for and encourage you and all shoppers to leave reviews.
- Female respondents cited that they enjoy online shopping (51% vs. 37% of male respondents), invest more time (60% vs. 46% for male counterparts) to find the best deals and often search for coupon codes to get discounts (48% vs. 29% for males).
Imagine, if people know that they can get great coupons on your website to use at the shop, how much that will increase the visits to your website and therefore what a great opportunity this is to get your message out to people who may not have visited your website before or otherwise.
It’s also a great way to build a positive relationship with people who hopefully, will become a donor, volunteer or support you in other ways.
An Incredible Fundraising Method
We will have more articles about the benefits of non-profit online stores as an incredible fundraising method and bring you more statistics.
But I can assure you, we can create an amazing store that we both promote and which will continue to earn your organisation an income every month for years. The best part is, over time, as more people get to know about it, the revenue will increase.
I seriously doubt that you could find a more hands off fund raising programme anywhere. Especially one that just keeps getting better and better over time. (And by better, I mean earns you more income but it will also evolve as we find out more about what your customers want).
Who can this work for?
Affordable but Effective Fundraising Strategy Consultants
Well, we have packages for organisations of all sizes and you have my guarantee, if we agree to partner with you, we guarantee we have a plan you can afford. And yes, that may mean, we set it up for free.
Finally, you do not have to be in Australia to take advantage of any of our services. We are currently working with clients in the UK, US, China and Africa as well as Australia.
Use the contact us form at the bottom of the page to initiate your free consultation.
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