Well Lookie there, a Hypothetical Poll From Yours Truly.

[Luke]

So, I'm opening a sales website, and the marketing is all up to me. So, say GameStop had an online sale with quite the promotion. The promotion: Either take 25% off your total order, or pay full retail, but 25% of the proceeds go to a respected and established charity, like the March of Dimes.

So vote, and BE HONEST. I even pitched the idea to my Mom, who has previously kicked cancer's ass, and asked if she would rather donate the proceeds to cancer research, and she chose the discount.

And don't only vote, let me know why you voted the way you did. As soon as the site launches, I'll invite all the racketeers to check it out.

[emwearz]

To be honest I would take the 25% off, I am a fulltime student and new games (which I have $5 limits on at the moment) are a treasure to me, so saving money to me, means I can buy a game (YAY!) and maybe get something slightly nicer to dinner or actually buy lunch for once (I tend to skip it lately to save some cash).

(I realize I am guessing you are selling games, but dont know what you are selling, but the reason is the same)

[dedalusdedalus]

I don't see what possible incentive anyone would have to choose the 25% donation.

Even for the altruistic souls among us who want to help others out, it would be better to take the 25% discount and donate the money saved towards the charity of your own choosing.

[bobbynewmarkiii]

I give to charity anyway - so give me cheap stuff.

[Luke]

Awesome, keep the input coming.

The only caveat is that my target demographic does a shit ton of charity work. But honesty is honesty. When you break it down to brass tacks, I've been leaning on a discount.

But thanks!

[MrPopo]

25% off is the way I'd go. If I wanted to donate that to charity I could do so myself, and donate it to whatever charity I happen to like that isn't a choice offered by you. The problem with the "We'll donate a portion to charity" is that the price you offer already has to be competitive with other merchants. If I am chosing between merchant A who charges me $10 or merchant B who charges me $10 and donates a dollar of the purchase price to charity I'm more likely to go with B, as they're equal in every other way. But if I'm chosing between merchatn C who charges me $9 or merchant D who charges me $10 and donates the dollar I'm going with C. In the latter case it feels like you're forcing me to give to charity, while in the former case it feels like you are generous and are donating to charity based on us buying stuff from you.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

Giving me the 25% discount offers me the option to take the unspent $15 (provided this is a brand new $60 game) and either spend it selfishly on another purchase for myself, or donate $5 to charity and take $10 off another game of my choosing - thereby having my cake and eating it too!

[jp1]

I chose discount because I don't trust big companies to actually send my money to the charities. I donate time and money to charity on my own and would rather choose my own cause than have it added in to something like that.

[lisalover1]

As others have said, donating to the charity of your choosing is the best option. Also, I'm just plain greedy.

[J T]

I think there might be some magic percentage number where people will pick donation instead of keeping it for themselves. If it's 25%, that's too good of a deal to pass up for yourself. However, if it's more around 5%, then I might go for donation. If you want to make more for charity, then you have to choose the sweet spot for the price reduction.

You could also tell people they have one of two options: 5% cash back to them, or 10% for charity. That would make me feel like a real jerk for not only taking my 5% away from the charity, but also denying them the opportunity for the other 5%.