How Emmaus Village Carlton used Sell Your Books Pro to clear space and generate income
Part of the international Emmaus network, Emmaus Village Carlton provides a home and meaningful work for up to 42 people from Bedfordshire, who have all experienced homelessness or social exclusion. The charity has been running for 22 years, providing practical and emotional support to help people get back to employment and accommodation. The charity runs a large site with three shops and a cafe to help fund its vital work.
The Challenge
Emmaus Village Carlton has always received a large number of generous donations from members of the public, and in fact over the years has set up a warehouse on site, which includes six separate areas for sorting, processing and testing donations.
Tom Blight has worked at Emmaus Village Carlton for eight years as Site and Recycling Manager, and is responsible for site maintenance, recycling and health and safety. This includes managing and sorting incoming donations, which are then transported to shops or sold on the charity's successful eBay store. Managing the volume of donations was becoming a challenge for Tom and his team, who wanted to ensure they got the best possible value from their supporters' generosity.
"As with any new technology, we had a few teething problems and questions during the set-up, all of which were dealt with quickly by our Customer Success Manager and the wider World of Books team. The developers even made some tweaks to the platform visuals during the roll-out, implementing a red cross and green tick icon to show when stock was accepted or rejected, which helped some of our volunteers who are vision-impaired."
Tom Blight
Site and Recycling Manager, Emmaus Village Carlton
The Roll-out
Having previously used Ziffit, the Emmaus team turned to World of Books to help clear space while still generating income from the donated books, CDs, computer games and DVDs. Sell Your Books Pro takes the pain out of online selling, by allowing charities with surplus stock to scan items and receive a fair trade price per item. Stock is then couriered for free back to World of Books, where it is rehomed, donated to good causes or recycled.
Emmaus Village Carlton started the roll out of Sell Your Books Pro (previously Shopiago Trade-in) in early 2022. Tom and his team immediately found the platform simple to use. It provided better stock control, and meant that they could use couriers more effectively because they knew what volumes were being shipped, and when. It also helped the Emmaus team of volunteers to work more efficiently, making the most of the time they had on-site.
The Emmaus team are also now able to generate data and analytics on the platform, to better track shipments, volume and revenue generated.
Results
The team at Emmaus Village Carlton are now submitting on average between 10 and 20 boxes a week using Sell Your Books Pro. By May 2022, the charity had made over £3,800 using the platform, putting it on track to raise over £10,000 in vital funds by the end of that year.
"It's been a great asset for us. We can shift stock more quickly, while still generating revenue from donations. In addition, we know that the stock itself is either going to a new home or being recycled, avoiding landfill all together, which is a real benefit."
Tom Blight
Site and Recycling Manager, Emmaus Village Carlton