David Biernbaum

Book Store Battles Giants with Charity

December 30, 2009

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Main Street Books in Orleans, Mass. offers a 10 percent discount on any purchase made from its website. The twist is that the 10 percent discount is then donated a charity. What do you think of Main Street Books' online marketing push touting charitable discounts?      [more...]

I do a lot of business development for consumer goods that have connections with charities including Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and several others. Through the years I have learned that different charities have different levels of charisma with consumers that directly impact price points and how much the consumer is willing to pay "extra" for the "feel good" benefit.

Consumers are fairly cynical though about most charity offerings and so the explanations and language on the consumer product or even online needs to be spelled out clearly in terms of how the money gets to the charity. Otherwise, the charity event will actually produce erroneous results.