In a move unprecedented in the history of charitable and relief fund-raising on eBay, the appeal for the Australian Bushfires Appeal appears to have gone global.

This is something that did not happen for the Indian Ocean Tsunami, The Chinese or Pakistani Earthquakes, or even for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the USA.

Despite the worthiness of the publicity and fund raising it provides, I have to ask the motivation for this never-seen-before move by the wilting prima donna of auction sites.  As the screen shot shows below, eBay have inserted an awareness and donations banner in the prime position of their homepages (this one being Singapore).  Clicking on the banner bounces first to the PayPal AU site, then to the Australian Red Cross.

There is no interstitial screen stating how fees will be handled and thus donators cannot judge if more good would occur by donating from their bank or post office, or direct from their credit or debit card.  I blogged about this same “distaste” being caused a few days ago – is it no more than a fees-grab by PayPal?

The other question that springs to mind is why this unprecedented cross-border fund-raising on the sites’ homepages?  What has prompted it?

It can hardly be considered that the horrors of the bushfires, and they are horrific but also a near-annual event nowadays, have prompted a gush of softness and empathy from the hard-headed fees-at-all-costs eBay corporation.

If that were the case then surely the Indian Ocean Tsunami Appeals would have been a far more likely beneficiary of the attention, if only because of the overall death toll and population displacement figures – total casualties plus displacements from the tsunami being greater than the total population of Australia.

My personal theory right now is that the actions of other sites (e.g. eBid raising money globally, Oztion raising it nationally) have shaken the slumbering giant’s marketing machine into realising they are no longer the only charitable community on the web (in addition to no longer being the only viable sales channel out there).

This, more than any recognition of the needs of the residents of the State of Victoria, is why eBay for the first time in its history is making a global appeal for donations.

And that’s my GBP 0.20 + 3.4%’s worth on the topic.

Ed