Posters on a wall above the table work great to put pricing on. Last year we got some of those clear plastic 8x10 stnd up picture frames in a dollar store. I then typed up pricing for the items at that table...say women's items for example and then listed the items with their price.
I agree with what Closetwriter said about kids coming with big money. I would say the average kid at our school comes with at least $20. Then we have kids that come with $30 - $60 they can spend. There are typically only a few kids that come with small amounts of money. After speaking with a lot of parents I have found they really like it as it is one less thing they need to deal with during that time of year. Many parents said they also spent less then if they had to take their kid to the mall to buy all their gifts.
As for payment...I send home a flyer explaining the sale and noting that items cost between $0.25 and $5. I attach a form for the parents to fill out noting who they have to buy a gift for and how much they can spend. I tell them they can pay by cash or check. If they make the check out for more then the kid buys we give the kid back the difference in cash. People can also send blank checks and they just note on the form what the maximum amount the kid can spend and we adhere to it.
Lastly...we always buy candy canes or lollipops and give one to each kid when they check out.
My school has used a company called A Small World Gift Shop, for the past few years.
Their items are beautiful, alot of their items are personalized, which the children love, nothing is hirer than $8.00.
The company works close with you, and goes out of their way to help you with any requests you may have. They give you gift bags, money envelopes, posters, a gift to use as a raffle. But then they have an extra incentive program after your sale is over, depending on what you paid them they send you free gifts, like a dvd, tv, bike, game system, or even a computer system to say thanks. No other company has ever been so nice, always around to anwer your phone for reorders. Try them I know your love them. Their # is 1-800-530-0169 if you want to call them for info. I hope this was a great help:)
We have about 730 kids we are middle class. Thank you for your advice. Another question I would have is ...if we set the tables by male, female, kids how do you what is what price? Do I have to sticker everything? Or am I just having a couple things for each price catagory with a poster above it. I love the combo gift idea (soda and popcorn)
Hello there. I am in charge of our frosty's mall this year at our school. We have anywhere from 500 to 525 kids in a school year. We are not what you would call a wealthy district, so we are having our shop everything under $3.00 . We also do not sort by prices. We keep everything for kids on one table, babies on another, and so on. We have a real good deal worked out with an avon representative in our school. We get everything at her cost, so we can sell stuff pretty cheap. Also, please check out your local discount stores and dollar stores. They usually have items that can be stocking stuffers. One gift we put together every year is a can of pop with a package of microwave popcorn. We sell this for $1.00, and we usually sell out. We also put together a pencil & candy cane for $.25 . I try not to overstock items, but it is hard to judge what you will need. I would like to send home a checklist for each child, to see who the need to buy for. Try to be there as much as possible, to see if near the end of the sale, you might need to go get a few more things. We always have some items left over, but we store them n our PTO closet. MY budget is set at $2,000 but that really depends on the size of the school. We try to make a little money, but this is mainly for the kids. We have went over budget a few times in the past, but with some thrifty shopping, that will not happen again. Good luck.
Hi! Our items range from $0.25 to $5 (When we use to use a company the prices went up to $9). The bulk of our items are in the $1 - $3 range. We usually only have about 2 items that are $5 items.
We don't sort our items by price, but rather by group...women's items, men's items, kids items, then we also have tables that are filled with holiday figurines and candles. For example. the women's tables have thing that are Mom, & Grandma specific as well as just basic female items (like Jewelry)Doing it this way makes it clear which area you might be running low in and the children also know which area to go to for whomever they are looking to buy for.
For your first time out it is hard to access how much to buy plus not every kid has a living grandparent and another kid has all 4 living and so on and so forth. We try to gage which items we believe will be the biggest sellers and buy more of those.
If you see you are running low on certain items you can always run to a $ store to restock...even if the items are not the same. This helps keep you from over buying if you know you can run out and buy things to restock with. Any left over stuff becomes pure profit for next years sale. Just inventory it before you put it away. Keeping great notes of what you ordered and what you sold will help you immensely for the next years store. Good Luck!
For those of you that do your own shop could you help me out. This will be our schools first year doing this and I have a few questions:
How much stuff do buy? How do you know how much of what to buy? Of course I know it is all trail and error but do I buy a Mom, Dad, sibling, grandma, grandpa gift for about everyone in school? and figure that the one's that don't participate will balance with those that want even more.
Also do you make it all $1 or $2 or do you have several tables with different prices?
