Usually, you would only find ‘Contribute Shopping’ online, but last Saturday the board members of the charity-site left their beds early to sell old stuff at the Södra Esplanaden flea market.
Around ten o’clock, the stand of Contribute Shopping still has lots on offer: a big teddy bear, clothing plates…
But nevertheless, engineering student and founder of Contribute Shopping Jörgen Olsson is satisfied.“Our web-editor gave us some completely new iPods to sell. We hope to raise about 2000 SEK today, and we are over 1000 already.”
In fact, the organization is at the flea market with a second goal: increasing their fame.
“Contribute Shopping is a website where customers can find links to their favorite web shops. For every item they buy, a small commission is given to us. Fifty percent of this money goes straight to charity, mostly to water projects in Africa. The other half is used by us to ensure the continuation of our website.” says Jörgen Olsson.
“The consumer doesn’t pay any extra”, explains the other founder of the website, Nils Wijkmark, who studies business law.
“The commission is paid by the companies of which the customers buy”.
Despite this ‘cheap’ way of donating money to a good cause, the amount of visitors fluctuates.
“As soon as we are given any attention in the media, the number of visits jumps, but a week later it can be back at the level of a few daily visitors again.”
The two students have set up their charity website only at the beginning of this year and it is still in a developing stadium.
“We plan to change our site and make 
it more interactive with a forum,” says Jörgen Olsson.
Moreover, the two have plans for selling their own products through the site, for example condoms. Everyone buying a condom will automatically donate one as well.
So far, Jörgen and Nils have managed the website as volunteers, next to their studies.
“Doing this is a very good way to learn things that you can never learn in class. For example, we are now very familiar with Swedish bureaucracy…” says Nils Wijkmark.
