Looking ahead to the future - St Luke's Hospice

We sat down with Sarah Conrad, Ecommerce Development Manager at St Luke’s Hospice to discuss the partnership with Shopiago and how it’s going so far.

In March 2023, St Luke’s Hospice, a charity providing specialist palliative care to people in Sheffield, started using Shopiago to support their online presence and drive vital funding.

St Luke’s Hospice has been trading on eBay for 10 years but as a small charity, it was difficult to achieve scalable growth and profit. Key areas and opportunities spotted included categories such as clothing to drive this growth and it was here that Sarah heard of Shopiago through the sector and kickstarted the partnership.

Like any new partnership and growth opportunity, it was a learning experience to begin with, but Sarah and team took it upon themselves to train themselves to be experts in the software, and as self-appointed training superstars they were always on hand to answer questions. This helped drive efficiency of the roll-out as questions were consolidated to their Customer Success Manager, Diana.

It was noted that the gradual roll-out helped the team become experts in the software implementation, for example a central team for storage space first; followed by eBay best practice and listings with speed following this.

Since initial roll-out, the team at St Luke’s Hospice have taken to the implementation very well and it has impacted on listing speeds and efficiency to date including increased brand visibility for the charity.

In the shorter term, there are key metrics established to monitor and drive success, such as increasing motivation for their volunteer network, increasing efficiencies across training and driving awareness of their eBay store and online. These are thanks to generous donations from the people of Sheffield.

Looking ahead to the future, St Luke’s Hospice hope to maximise their ecommerce profit in the next five years and venture into new online marketplaces across the rest of its retail chain to ultimately raise vital funds to drive their core mission. This to provide care and support to those aged 18 and above throughout Sheffield who have ​terminal illnesses. St Luke’s aim to control symptoms, alleviate pain, and give the best possible quality of life – all free of charge.