Short version: We will postpone the auction to next week.
Long version:
One would think selling 30 pairs on auction to give all the money to charity would be easy right? On paper it sounds like a good idea.
Technically though, as we do not have a built in function for an auction online, we needed to build one from scratch. Not a big issue to figure out for the sharp minds at our webstore partner Panagora. Just put the shoes online, code a bidding function, add a validation where people enter name, address and phone so we can reach them and hit the go button right?
But of course people want to try it once it is up there. And of course some smart ass wants to show us how easy it is to beat the system on this auction site if you wanted to. We get it – we did not set a limit on how fast and how high you can go. Neither did we bother to have a validation to make sure the persons signing up is actually a real person. Partly because that is not as easy as it sounds automaticly, and partly because we do not have the resources to handle and verify 60.000-100.000 international bidders manually. Bottom line is that if someone wants to wreck a site that was built in days in order to raise money for a good cause – it can be done.
So – Plan B. What is Plan B? To be honest, we didn’t really think we would need a plan B. Selling 30 pairs for charity was an idea we came up with when we saw the number of people we had online for a hot release a few weeks back. We figured that if we could get all of those 100.000 people to donate $1 each, it would make a difference. We thought that it could inspire others to do similar. A bit naive of course, but call us hopeless romantic for believing in the good in people. And based on the feedback we got, most of you out there really verified this.
We will find a way to do this. But it will not happen today. The team behind this worked their heart out for days to make it happen. And just adjusting with minor changes in a few hours will probably end up the same way. It would be shot down by people that really enjoys finding the flaws in things.
We will make a new announcement on Tuesday the 25th, where we hope to have a new plan to get this done.
As a sidenote – regarding the choice of our charity partner: The International Federation of the Red Cross. It has been brought to our attention that there was a lot of bad news circulating in mostly Amercian media sometime ago. Those news pointed out the the American Red Cross as a not so good option to donate money to. To be as transparent as possible, we would like to point out that we are working with the International Federation of the Red Cross on this, and that there is a difference. We would also like to encourage you to read this statement from the American Red Cross. And if you want to know in detail, how 91 cents out of every dollar ends up in Haiti you can cut straight to this.
Thank you for your support in our mission to help Haiti.
Erik & Peter & Sneakersnstuff Family
”don’t wait – donate”
