Competing with Ebay

[questeds]

One of my many business ideas, that I would love some feedback on is as follows:

To create an auction website, similar to Ebay, but where a percentage (chosen by the seller) goes straight to their chosen charity. Charities can register with the Auction site, and when people list an item, they can decide what % of their sale they would like to go to one of the listed charities. Paypal or similar can then be used for normal payments and the payment would be split between the seller and the charity. In terms of a business, I am thinking that the charities can pay a small subscription fee for being listed, and then have premium upgrades for advertising on the site.

My thoughts are that it will encourage people to give to charities, just from rubbish they are selling anyway, and it might only be a small percentage.

Thoughts/Criticisms etc. all welcomed...

Thanks

[questeds]

Thanks for your response D - I have not discussed with any charities yet, still conceptualising. I guess what I was trying to do was remove the listing fee usually charged to the seller, so they would be more enthused about the percentage donation. But you have a valid point, why would the charities do this unless it was proven - perhaps an intro period of 6 months, or until they had recieved the value of the registration fee?

[SCJeff]

I guess it would really depend on how much you charge for charities to get listed. Some of the bigger charities may have no problem with spending a little money produce more income for the charity, but the problem is the smaller ones, they generally are pretty tight financially. Like said above go talk to some charities and find out from them if this is something they would do.

[Sarenokai]

Dslackman has a good point.

Before you move ahead with creating the site, make sure to go interview several charities via interviews and phone conversations. Also be sure to talk to the decision maker, it doesn't make any sense in speaking with a gas station attendant about purchasing the business.

research your competition too, ebay and amazon saturate the market. look up their tax information to find out if they are even in a profit. The industry trends and other relevant information. Once you know about what makes your competition successful than you will want to do your best to compete with them. What will make you a better success than the others?

Also, I agree with the charging of charities, I would suggest using it as a option in your site but first you must get into profitability before you can benefit charities. You can have a donation section and a integrated system in your auction. Will you allow mass products like ebay, or sell to a niche that would be more interested in charities. Sometimes focusing on a smaller group is better and more productive. We don't all need to be like Wal-mart that sells everything.

Simply do your due dilligence and figure out exactly what you want to create and then figure out how to build it with the charity as a ethical boost of confidence for your customers.

Keep at it, it sounds like a good starting point. You now need to push through the process.