ShoppingGives: When Philanthropy Makes Good Business For Retailers

It’s the middle of an unprecedented pandemic, and the health of the economy seems to change on a day-to-day basis.

Yet, American consumers have opened their bank accounts for non-profits. According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, after tanking in the first quarter, non-profit donations rose with the pandemic in Q2, heading for a 7.5 percent increase for the first half of 2020 compared to 2019.

None of this is lost on Ronny Sage. As the CEO of social impact commerce platform ShoppingGives, he said he has seen retailers, consumers and non-profits step up at a critical time in everyone’s lives, and he has been able to apply technology and a keen awareness of the business side of philanthropy to build a unique marketplace.

That marketplace connects the three stakeholders to each other, with retailers winning valuable side benefits in the process. And it has been rewarded recently with $5.5 million in funding.

“I think the idea of cause marketing is rooted in psychology,” Sage told PYMNTS. “If you go on Twitter and use hashtag #shoppinggives, you’ll see people sharing their impact and building a community of impact around the brands that are supporting them for an extra cost. There is that feel-good moment when you make that purchase. And when you feel like your impact is being created during that purchase, it is incredible.”

Incredible from the psychology side, and sound business from the retail side. The ShoppingGives platform, founded in 2017, has thrived during the pandemic. Amidst COVID-19, it has grown over 148 percent year to date, with over 1,400 retailers integrated with the eCommerce technology, donating to over 6,000 individual non-profit organizations and driving growth for retailers in conversion rate increases of 19 percent, average order value increases of 23 percent, and lifetime value increases of 18 percent. It validates what the philanthropy category is seeing in general.

Sage said he sees ShoppingGives as an essential enabler for social impact. His company is built on three pillars: regulation, customer journey and data. By using technology and personnel resources, he and his team have been able to focus on the things that retailers either cannot contend with or wouldn’t know to investigate as they set up what looks on the surface like an easy process.

For example, he said each of the 50 states has different regulations regarding how a charity donation is communicated, reported and accounted for. That part of the business came fairly easy in the early days of the company. But Sage also realized that donating to a charity from an eCommerce site could be an experience fraught with friction and frustration for the consumer.

For both the retailers and consumers, Sage and his team have set out to remove that friction. From a retail perspective, here’s how it works. After contacting the ShoppingGives team to get on the platform, the integration gives the retailer a one-click access to more than 1.5 million charities.

So, for example, Kenneth Cole, which is on the platform, may have a pair of $150 shoes, and as the consumer checks out, he or she will see an estimated charity donation assigned to the item, such as $8. The consumer selects the ShoppingGives link, and then selects a charity. The funds are automatically processed by Shopping Gives.

On its own, that level of altruism is respectable. But it also takes friction out of the customer journey, sparing the retailer the alienation of dissatisfied customers. It also unlocks invaluable data for retailers that enables them to engage shoppers directly based on consumer cause segmentation and affinities, all of which is visible via a proprietary dashboard.

This buttoned-up approach has made ShoppingGives the only donation app recommended by Shopify under the “Launching Your Store” category on the Shopify marketplace. In addition, ShoppingGives offers integrations with all leading eCommerce content management systems and partners with the PayPal Giving Fund. With 1,400 retailers currently on the platform, Sage said his company is now aiming for larger companies in his bid to create a “democratic” approach to social impact.

“If we can help a retailer make more money, we can help them give back more,” he said. “And that’s our goal at the end of the day. We’re building the future of commerce. … the conscious consumer is here.”