Charities have been running online shops for some time, and beyond the basic sales of fundraising items in recent years they have moved to offering real life solutions (or ethical giving) to their cause – buy a goat for an african village, teach a classroom with a supply of textbooks.
Oxfam have expanded their store even further by linking into their highstreet stores and posting second hand items on their site. Instead of browsing through rack of cloths and shelves of book you can now search online for unwanted gems. It’s good to see charities join in the full service experience blending their offline and online services together. Considering the complications of running second hand shops where you never know what might be on the shelves one day from the next I think this is an especially impressive move forward from Oxfam.
And I notice Oxfam use twitter in their media centre. Good to see these services getting picked up more and more.
Last night I was shopping for a present for a good friend of mine at work who’s leaving this week. As they commute long stretches of the tube each day I decided what they would most like to receive as a leaving present would be An Illustrated Guide to the Piccadilly Line (and a wodge of topshop vouchers and some other stuff, we’re not complete bastards).
It turns out the London Transport Museum has a very impressive library of books on everything tube and train related, and it doesn’t stop there, they have a decent sized display devoted to DVDs. What particularly caught my eye was the series of “Driver eye view” films for each of the tube lines, with a running commentary of dark tunnel followed by dark tunnel of tube track. Now that is a niche market, and they’re got it fully covered. Don’t tell Gorden Brown though or he’ll ban them for being a terrorist threat.
On my way to Covent Garden I also noticed a very nice looking whisky shop which I had a quick look in on. Whisky was stacked floor to ceiling and it reminded me of a cachaca shop in Paraty ‘d been to. In a complete coincidence the London Daily Photo site features the same whisky shop in today’s photo. Which is nice.
