OK, am I the only one who LOVES shopping for school supplies? AHH, a crisp new box of Crayola crayons, colorful folders, ohh the backpack choices, pencils, markers, glue sticks, oh my!
I do like the supply kit idea though. I see there are alot of people who love not having to get out and buy it. It would be nice to have the option.
From what I know as a parent, we used SchoolPops for our supply kits this year.
Purchasing for my daughter, who is in Kindergarten this year, I was very excited NOT to have to run all over for school products. I know last year it was horrid!!!
Since we are a private school, we are starting a week earlier than the public schools (all of the holidays), but I know that it is absolutely INSANE to try and get all of the supplies all at once. Half the time, we all end up missing most of the product!!
That is why we used them this year.... From what I heard from the past PTO president, we do pretty well and I will be looking forward to using them again this coming 2005-2006 school year!!
We used School Tool Box for this next school year. They sent us a sample box that we displayed in the office and at our school spring carnival. We then sent home an informational flyer then a week later sent home the order form flyer. Each order form was customized for each grade level and has a spot for the student's name and credit card information if the parents choose to pay that way. I even emailed late orders to them with no problems. They orders are typically due in by the end of April (for us) so they can be put together and shipped and be at our school mid-August. The kids that ordered them will pick them up the Friday before school starts during the meet the teacher time frame. We also were able to order several more boxes for each grade level on consignment to sell that first week of school. What we don't sell, we send back. We just pay for the ones we sell.
So far, the company has been wonderful to work with. I get a reply to my emails within an hour at the latest. They've been extremely helpful and nice to work with.
I love this post. Our school has been talking about do this for couple years but have not done so. I would like to for i guess not this coming year it would be too late. I think. So maybe the 06-07 school year. But how do you sell them? I mean when do you collect money and orders for them. Do you give it to them on Registration day or take orders that day. Thank you for your help and glad someone posted this question.
We had a list of the supplies needed per grade and went to WalMart/Target to check out the current prices. We then added about $2 on top of that. We sent out the order form with the children's report cards and supply lists and added it to our website. Our profit will be coming from mostly getting the items on sale and the couple of bucks we added per pack. We are going to label each item with the student's name and have them in the child's classroom the first day of school so he/she won't have to haul them around on the bus or their car (especially helpful with Kindergarten and small children).
I've heard good things about SchoolMax. I think they are at kits.schoolmaxllc.com or .biz. I believe they do only grade specific kits and backpacks, you don't customize the list (but we did manage to add a few items) Our church group worked with them successfully in the past. Hope this helps.
