eBay Giving Works

I vaguely remember when I started hearing about ebay. One of my friend's moms had started spending hours selling things on the site, and I recall seeing the room that she had devoted to their house in New Jersey to collecting things that she or her friends no longer wanted, as well as things that she bought for the sole purpose of selling on ebay. I did not think very much of this, and the few things that I have looked for things on ebay I have always signed off without success, usually because I could not figure out how to filter things enough to find what I was looking for, rather than a list of thousands of things that were half of what I was looking for. I think I might be in the minority here though, because I know a lot of people look to ebay first when they are looking for a new purchase. In particular, I have noticed that people often turn to ebay for vintage boots, though, as per usual, when I tried to look on ebay for boots, I could not figure out how to find exactly what I want.

While most of the things found on ebay are shallow things like boots and ipods, ebay has been doing more and more projects through "Giving Works", which are online charitable auctions. While some of the things auctioned off are vacations etc, as far as I can tell, the majority of the auctions are built around celebrity paraphernalia. I think that this is a really great way to use the ebay, because I would think that it is probably one of the first places that people look when they are looking for things like celebrity paraphernalia, and then they can get what they wanted while helping out a charity. Some of the things offered right now are "Shop, dine & be styled with model and actress Molly Sims" (sponsored by Youth Aids), "Miley Cyrus: Get UR Good on, Bid on clothing & accessories straight from the closet of Miley Cyrus", DJ AM Shoe Auction which benefits the DJ Am Memorial Fund, A Walk on role on How I Met Your Mother to benefit Food on Foot, and many more. The site features a tract of how much money they have raised for charity that is constantly changing as people buy things. Right now, its at $143,540,997 but it has gone up $6 since I wrote that. Here's the site: http://givingworks.ebay.com/