Having something to sell is a fast way to raise money for your pet’s cancer treatments. What's even better is finding something to sell without paying a cent. There are several ways you can find free merchandise. My personal favorite is cruising the neighborhood for a little curbside shopping. You'd be surprised what your neighbors throw out! Flea markets & eBay merchant’s resale curbside treasures every day, and you can too.
Here are a few places to start looking for FREE stuff online:
FreeCycle.org is powered by Yahoo. The site is designed to encourage recycling within our communities. You can place an ad "SEEKING ITEMS" or "FREE ITEMS" for others to pick up. The only rule is that the items are not re-sold on Craigslist. We suggest using FreeCycle to gather items for garage sales and consignment.
Craigslist is an amazing resource, and best of all it's free! Craigslist offers a "FREE" section where people post curb alerts by city. Keep an eye out on the weekends for leftover garage sale items. Sometimes people will leave all the leftovers on the curb. Their loss is your gain!
The "ITEMS WANTED" listings are another important section on Craigslist . Items Wanted allows you ask your neighbors for specific items or to tell them about your cause. While raising money for our dog Angel, we asked our neighbors for Mardi Gras beads, items to sell on eBay and in garage sales. It’s a great way to get people involved and to share your pets story, and hopefully get a donation.
The Barter section on Craigslist is another excellent tool. An example would be "Will trade CD's for dog food". This works especially well if you have a sellable product in mind. We used to trade our stuff for Mardi Gras beads because we are in New Orleans. Since we knew we'd make money on the beads, and not so much on our winter clothes, we bartered up.
eBay is a great way to raise money. It's easy, affordable and high traffic. We suggest using eBay for items valuing $20 or more. Anything less can result in wasted efforts. The only exception would be if you have a bulk inventory of items on hand. eBay is another place to spread your message. Every ad you write should include your pets story. Animal lovers will give more, and share the infomation, and others will feel good for helping a good cause. It's a win, win.
Selling books cant take time, but the end result is worth it. There are seveal online retailers that offer the opportunity to sell new and used books for a percentage of the profits. Google, "Sell Books Online" for a list of websites likeAmazon, Alibris and Half.com (powered by eBay).
Be creative, be persisitant and keep trying new things until you find something that works.
After our baby was diagnosed with cancer in January, we needed to raise a lot of money fast. We had already spent thousands trying to diagnose her since her cancer is rare. We started with Plato's closet. They buy junior clothing, shoes, men's clothing, purses, costume jewelry, shoes, and belts. They pay you 30% of what they're going to sell it for and it's not consignment...you get paid cash on the spot. We gathered up everything we could between our family and friends and wound up making over $300. Everything that was left over, we sold at a garage sale. The garage sale was the next fundraiser we did. We put flyers out all over the neighborhood with our pet's story asking everyone to stop by to check out our stuff and invited them to donate items or money. It was amazing! Animal lovers showed up with their pets AND donations. People bought items and donated. We raised over 2 treatments. Any items left over we either sold on Ebay or Craigslist or saved for the next garage sale. And, yes, the free items on Craigslist are awesome! Next thing is that gold is at an all time high. Any jewelry that didnt have sentimental value or I rarely wore was sold. My husband and parents did the same. When our girl got sick and we looked at ways to help her, all we saw were things, useless things that we could sell to help save our Roxy. There was another 2 treatments. We also put out a donation jar at our primary vet's office. By spreading the word and sharing her story with our friends and family on Facebook we got an incredible offer from an old friend of mine. She works at a bar in a comedy club so they put up a poster with Roxy's story and a donation bucket AND they are giving us unlimited amounts of tickets to sell for $15. We get to keep 100% of the profits. Put donation jars out where ever you can. Put a picture of your pet on the jar and a short summary of their story. Spread your story as much as you can and don't ever get discouraged. It's true, where there's a will, there's a way. We've met the most amazing people with all that we're doing to help our Roxy. We tell her she's a celebrity and she doesn't even know it. I wish everyone well on their journey to help their beloved pet.
We need help JoJo has cancer and we cannot afford his treatments