MOR 4 Charities – The Official Launch

Guest blog by Charity Retail & Training Support Services

On Thursday 8 July, the Charity Retail Association hosted a webinar which saw the launch of a new offering, which is available exclusively to charities looking to take the next step on their ecommerce journey.  More than 240 attendees signed up and the response since the launch has been truly remarkable. The new offering is called ‘M.O.R 4 Charities’ (Multichannel Online Retailing for Charities).

Let us be honest – most charity retailers are now selling online in some form or another. eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and the idea of a shop on your own website are hardly well-kept secrets anymore. In 2021, for a charity to stand out from the crowd, it is not enough to simply start selling on yet another platform. To take the next step in this ever-evolving world of ecommerce, charities are now asking what systems and processes are available to help link all their platforms together and set them to work in sync with their shops and preferred couriers.

It is a question we have been asked routinely over the past 6 months. The answer is not one we give very often at all, but it may be time to take a leaf out of the book of our commercial retail counterpart’s. It is incredibly rare that we would ever suggest doing this and of course commercial retail and charity retail are worlds apart in so many facets. However, when it comes to how they sell (and particularly how they ship goods) online, there are valuable lessons to be learned.

Click image to watch video

Review your operation

There are many charities who, for good reason, are still using the tried and tested methods of selling online and, whilst initially this is a great place to start, once a charity retail online business is established then modernising is the most obvious next step. The ‘standard’ charity ecommerce operation will include one (or more) of the following:

  1. Shop Managers presented with a conflict of interest, having to decide whether to keep items in shop and benefit from their sale or send them away and potentially make more for the charity, even if it does not always benefit their own shop.
  2. Staff still taking parcels to the Post Office or Hermes collection points daily. Not only is there an obvious time cost associated with this, but the parcel rates are often the standard discounted business rates or (worse still) standard consumer rates, costing the charity hundreds, if not thousands, every year.
  3. Central online hubs/warehouses.  Moving donations from the point of donation to a different location, often many miles away, to be listed and sold.  Any items that are not sold are then often sent back to the donating shop.  The average returns in the sector are over 50%.
  4. Uncertainty and confusion as to why certain items do not sell quickly on their chosen selling platform.
  5. Collecting Gift-Aid on items sold online is very rare as it is so difficult to do.
  6. Manually listing on multiple platforms across various open tabs and windows. 
  7. Urgently removing items from other channels as soon as it is sold to avoid negative feedback and warnings.

Like any fast-moving sector, the charity retail online world is changing quickly and with ‘MOR 4 Charities’ software already operating in dozens of UK Charity Shops, and more being added every day, it is clear that the not-too-distant future will look quite different;

  1. Charities will no longer send items away from their shops to be sold.  Instead, they will list items from store and collections from individual sites will become the norm.  Moving donations away from store will become a memory and discussed in a way like ‘life before Amazon’.
  2. Charities will benefit from the industry leading logistics rates negotiated for them rather than business rates they are simply given.
  3. The knowledge of the e-commerce teams working within charities will be far higher and listings being sold at their optimum rate, with minimal or no research, will be far more common
  4. Those charities with a desire and a suitable donation base will be able to leverage the capability of simultaneously listing across different selling platforms quickly to optimise their time.
  5. Claiming Gift-Aid for online sales will become as straight forward as claiming it for in-store sales.

Summary

Charity retail is changing fast, evolving into a modern, high tech operation, where profit is king and those charities who want to ride the growth of e-commerce are adapting to the future now. That future is MOR 4 Charities.

If this has piqued your interest and you would like to find out more by speaking to us about your charity to discover if MOR 4 Charities is right for you, then follow this link to leave us your details.  All you are agreeing to is us phoning you – that is it, nothing else.

The first 50 charities who show their interest will automatically be entered into a Giveaway to win MOR 4 Charities software, across 6 sites, completely free for a year.

Good Luck!

www.mor4charities.com | hello@charityretailtraining.co.uk | 020 8050 7514