Online shopping can benefit NonProfits

A growing regional online market likes choice & saving time & money

The ProBono Australia Newsletter this week reports that more regional Australians are moving online in search of everyday items and says this is another reason why NonProfits can benefit from having an active online presence.

PWF would like to put in its grassroots spoke here and suggest Neighbourhood Houses and Learning Centres could increase their online visibility – tell their stories, raise their profile (a good lobbying opportunity) and sell their courses online.

Those holding the funding purse strings would then have easy access to a stream of what this ‘collection of grassroots organisations with different names’ actually DOES!!! PWF realises time is always scarce but a ‘little and often’ from a plethora of sources just might be more effective than large one-off publicity drives.

What is the basis for this thinking?
AC Nielsen research shows:

• nearly 1.5 million regional Australians now shop online;
• with 62% using broadband online shopping is becoming easier;
• the numbers have increased 17% from 2005 to 2006.

Regional/rural online shoppers see the benefits as:

eBay Australia research:

• 49% of regional Australians agree that limited choice of products is one of the main disadvantages of living outside of the cities;
• 33% of rural Australians are moving online to websites like eBay for items such as clothing, shoes, DVDs, computer equipment, toys,collectables and sporting goods.
• Australia Post says there is a trend for an increasing number of people in rural communities buying items online sites with a steady rise in domestic parcel volumes, including a 3-5% per annum growth in recent years.
• State-by-state comparison from eBay’s research shows that choice is a major benefit to 92% of rural and regional SA residents, 61% of those in VIC and TAS, 53% in NSW and 49% in QLD and WA.
• 78% of regional and rural SA dwellers, 75% of those in VIC and TAS, 63% in NSW and 54% in QLD believe that buying online helps them source the exact item they’re looking for.

NonProfits using online activities to raise funds

• Pro Bono Australia reports that The Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) has added eBay to its regular fundraising activities – with the added benefit of driving more traffic to its own website. RIDBC is now using eBay to auction everyday items which would normally be sold via its opportunity shop or book fair.
• Lorraine O’Keefe from the Australia Koala Foundation in Brisbane has recently begun using eBay to raise funds.
• Sancha Donald from Accessible Arts in NSW says her organisation sees the online sales as a way of not having to run events such as celebrity auctions.

Every Neighbourhood House community would have to have a few blogging types who’d write up popular courses and post local success stories, wouldn’t they? Country Neighbourhood Houses not online could ‘lead’ their communities online, possibly using Ruth Schwager’s Rural Small Towns Web Package, and set up their own active websites.