Give item to charity shop or sell and give proceeds?

A question about : Give item to charity shop or sell and give proceeds?

Hi Mum has just started to clear out some of my dad's possessions (he died 2 years ago)
She wants to donate a set of classical cassette tapes to the charity shop.

I have just looked on Ebay and the exact same set has recently sold for Ј100.
Is it better to sell the tapes and donate the money or just let the charity shop do their work?

How reliable is the selling on Ebay for charity does anyone know?

tia

dx

Best answers:

• Sell them and donate the proceeds. Unless you have a specialist music charity shop near you with staff who really know their onions. None of the charity shops near me asell cassettes at all anymore, most just simply don't have the time to do an internet search on every item that's donated.
  Selling on ebay for charity works well in my experience.
• Hi, depending on the charity, some have their own teams to sell valuable things on Ebay (Oxfam has it, Cancer Research has it etc.)
  Or you can try to sell on Ebay yourself. I did before. You list the item and state you will sell for the charity. They will ask you to choose. Then you can choose a percentage for the donation. You can donate the all proceeds or half of it - up to you.
  When you sell for charity, a special icon displays on your listing and tells it is a charity listing.
  So for the answer on your question - it is reliable from personal experience.
  You still need to sort posting etc.
  Is there any specific charity you want to donate? If not, I'd say take them to Oxfam as they are good at that sort of stuff.
• Thank you.
  I think that mum just wants to get rid of the clutter. She would rather the money/goods went to the British Heart Foundation or cancer Research.
  I will see what she thinks when she's finally ready to let them go.
  Thanks Casati I think I will see if there is a specialist music charity shop near by as that would be the easiest option for me.
  Mum wants to clear the tape set a bit at a time I think it would be better to keep all the cassettes together - there are 65 in all- what do you think?
  dx
• Selling them seperately on Ebay will be easier in my opinion.
  Posting 65 casettes is problematics first of all.
  For instance if there is a set of books / dvds/ casettes, there could be ones that I dont want, need. I rather to buy single.
  You can of course give option to merge posting. So if someone buys 5 of them from you, you can post them together. It is only fair anyway.
  You can put this on your listing so they will know.
  You can also ask people to contact you if they are interested in to buy all and perhaps collect locally. Easier and you will get cash from hand and won't pay Paypal fees.
  Most charities have Twitter accounts. If you have one, you may ask them what they think. They might help.
• However you end up selling everything, don't forget to Gift Aid it (if you're a UK tax payer). That adds another 20% to your donation