There are 2500 charity second-hand shops in Australia, working to raise funds for charity and to divert used goods from the landfill. But all of these has stopped due to COVID-19, where charity op-shops are forced to close.

 

To help solve this, my 2020 GovHack team and I are working to digitalise charity op-shops using public and government datasets, so that the op-shops can keep operating during COVID-19. As a proof of concept, our team built an app for op-shops to catalogue and list their books online.

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Datasets Used

• Government (GovHack)

  • Department of Health COVID-19 Resources ​

  • COVID-19 case locations

  • State Library of WA

• Public (External)

  • Google Book API (When the State Library Dataset is insufficient)​

  • eBay Find API (Not fully implemented)

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​​Challenges Entered & Rationale

• Community growth and recovery​​​

• ​Re-energising our city centre during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Industry assistance during COVID-19

• Canberra Bouncing Back – a resilient City​

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COVID-19 has greatly disrupted how people shop and how retailers operated in Sydney, Canberra and beyond.

 

Specifically, it has put the entirely Australian charity op-shop industry at a halt. ​​There are 2500 charity op-shops in Australia, including 33 in Canberra and 250+ in Sydney. And the closure of these op-shops are cutting off a major revenue source for various charities and pausing efforts to divert goods from the landfill. The community of volunteers & thrift shoppers in Sydney & Canberra are also cut off from their "spots".

 

As such, The Freers team is using open data and working to digitalise Australian op-shops. Our team is then taking on the above Govhack challenges as we work to revitalize an important industry and the corresponding communities in Sydney, Canberra and beyond. 

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