You’ve probably noticed county fairs or special events giving away some big ticket items. Sometimes they raffle off a motorcycle or an ATV and sometimes they raffle off a trip to an exotic location. These types of items draw a lot of attention and sell lots of tickets, but the organization takes a huge risk. The premise is easy, sell enough tickets to cover the cost of the item and then some, but that doesn’t always happen! Many times the charity fundraiser is lucky to break even.
What if the items to be auctioned were risk free? Risk-free auction items, sometimes called auction packages or consignment items, are a classic fundraising strategy, but where do you find them? Do they cost the fundraiser anything? Imagine finding a catalog of tempting travel packages and luxury experiences that you can auction off for potentially twice their face value. That’s our inventory catalog.
Our inventory catalog consists of items that cost the fundraiser absolutely nothing. If the items don’t sell, it goes right back into the pool. If they do sell, you pay a certain percentage of the cost and the rest goes to your cause.
Your organization is only required to purchase packages that reach a minimum auction price set by our partner, Auction Packages. If you don’t get the minimum bid on a package, you don’t pay anything to Auction Packages. This guarantees you profit on items sold and makes all our packages 100% risk free.
For example: you choose a risk-free tropical vacation package listed at $1,500. The trip’s actual value is $3,000, and you set a reserve price of $2,500 on it. In a well-publicized auction, the winning bid comes in at $3,500. Your organization just made $2,000!
Let’s say the opposite happens, and the highest bid is $1,000. No one wins because the reserve price was not met, and you aren’t out the cost of the package. The downside? You don’t raise any funds for your charity with this item. But, crucially, you didn’t spend any money (or much time or effort), either.
Sometimes packages are so popular you have donors who want to buy them straight out. Our partner’s unique experiences can be sold multiple times (many with no limit) for those who regret they didn’t bid or were unable to attend.
We’ve partnered with Auction Packages to help you find the perfect risk-free items for your charity auction. Read their FAQs to learn more.
Here are some tips to make the most of the packages you pick from our inventory catalog:
- Add at least 20% to the non-profit cost of the package to get your reserve price.
- Use social media like Facebook to advertise your auction and ask your community to share on their pages too.
- Don’t list more than 3 or 4 inventory items.
- Make your auction global.
- If one item has multiple bids, contact the other high bidders and offer them the same package at the winning bid price.
- Pick just one highball item.
Log in and start adding risk-free auction items to your auction today.
