DollarDays today released its first Nonprofit Purchasing Index (NPI), which reveals nonprofits’ top 10 most-wanted goods for the holiday season. Based on nearly 12 years of purchasing data, the NPI highlights the products most frequently purchased from DollarDays by the company’s nonprofit partners. Since 2007, DollarDays has processed more than 141,000 orders with over 56 million products for nonprofit organizations.
This year, the most-ordered products on the NPI are personal care items, which include soap, deodorant, lotions and oral care essentials. DollarDays has sold more than 22 million personal care items to nonprofit organizations since starting to aggregate its purchasing data. This category represents nearly 22% of all nonprofit orders for the holiday season and 40% of total units sold.
“Personal care items are used by organizations across the country because they’re critically needed by so many, allowing them to focus on their core missions while saving time and money,” said Shelly Chaney, Vice President and General Manager of DollarDays. “The items also provide basic necessities that meet a variety of needs for homeless shelters, people who have been forced to leave their homes because of a natural disaster, or for basic personal care needs. When nonprofits buy from DollarDays, they can be assured they’re purchasing quality products.”
Rounding out the top five on the NPI are holiday-themed items (15%), such as gift-wrapping supplies, decorations and books; toys and games (14.7%); winter accessories (12.6%); and clothing (7.4%).
Chaney added, “Nonprofit soften get unwrapped donations and have holiday-themed celebrations. DollarDays offers inexpensive gift-wrapping supplies and decorations to make sure they can provide wrapped gifts and affordable celebrations during the season.”
No. 3 on the NPI is toys and games. DollarDays is a wholesale toys destination, selling 8.2 million toys to nonprofits since 2007. Recently, DollarDays partnered with the U.S. Marines Toys for Tots Program to provide personal assistance for more than 800 Toys for Tots Coordinators across the country. DollarDays’ 2018 holiday toy catalog also gives organizations like Toys for Tots convenient access to the right toys for kids of all ages.
The complete list of the top 10 most-wanted products for nonprofits based on DollarDays’ NPI is as follows:
- Personal Care
- Holiday & Party Supplies
- Toys & Games
- Winter Accessories
- Clothing
- Socks
- Food
- Blankets
- Baby Care
- Hygiene Kits
The full list of categories, as well as the data used, is available to download here:
“Our partners such as United Way, Salvation Army, Good360, Catholic Charities and Rotary receive a high volume of product donations leading up to the holidays. In some cases, the contributions don’t meet all of their needs, so they use donation dollars to purchase items that fill the gaps,” explained Chaney. “This is where DollarDays comes in. We provide a wide variety of affordable products that help our partners stretch their dollars so they can help as many people as possible.”
As a leading supplier of wholesale goods for the past 18 years, DollarDays has collected a significant amount of data that the company shares with its partners and uses to improve its own operations. This information helps DollarDays’ customers track their spending habits, refine their processes, monitor cost savings, identify new opportunities and maximize their donation dollars. DollarDays also plans to use its extensive data resources to publish a variety of procurement reports.
“Selling products is only part of who we are,” said Chaney. “We’ve collected a wealth of data over the years, which our nonprofit partners use to help extract trends down to the product and regional levels. We share this information in an easy-to-understand and visual way so if our partners have questions, they can quickly find answers and discover new ways to assess their projects and achieve their missions.”