British charities have welcomed a scheme that will allow the ten million registered users on online auctioneer eBay UK to donate a portion of individual sales to their nominated charity.

The scheme, launched today in conjunction with the BBC's Children in Need, will also give charities an easier system for selling their own goods online without incurring fees.

EBay will continue to charge small listing fees to sellers and charities for each item put up for sale, but will donate all the "final value fee", its usual sliding-scale percentage of the agreed sale price, to the charities.

The auction site says the scheme is aimed at unlocking some of the estimated £9 billion worth of goods gathering dust in attics across the country.

Sellers can decide which proportion of the sale value - from 10 per cent to 100 per cent - goes to charity and can also choose to make their donations eligible for Gift Aid, which increases the value of the donation by 28 per cent.

Mark Lewis, head of charity at eBay UK, said: "Until now, many charities have had to rely on shops on the high street and passing trade to raise money directly from consumers.

"This innovative new platform effectively enables charities to open a permanent shop on every desktop, enabling small and large organisations alike to benefit from charitable contributions 24/7."

Simon Ledsham, retail director of Cancer Research UK, welcomed the scheme, saying it would boost fundraising and help attract new donors. He said: "The future for medium to large charity shop chains in the face of price deflation and increased costs is to change business."

A spokeswoman for Oxfam said the charity had been using eBay and offline auction houses for years, including a recent celebrity clothes sale that raised £18,000, and individual Oxfam shops already posted valuable niche items on the site.

"This makes that process easier," she added. "It also makes it obvious to people who are buying that they are buying for a charity."

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