Hi, our PTC just discussed this, so here are some points to ponder:
1) the company may be giving you less profit to "pay" for the cost of shipping and packaging directly to the customer (ultimately we decided not give up this 5%)
2) we felt that if a neighbor purchased from one of our students, the right thing to do was have that student deliver the item and say THANKS for supporting us (we felt that our community would feel less attached to our school if their items were sent directly and they never saw our student again)
3) someone who worked in catalog customer sales says that delivery can be a nightmare with some folks; we wanted to be able to see and feel the inventory, check for broken items, and make sure everything was there before given to our customers (we get only 1-2 calls out of 250 participants who "didn't receive"; also, we don't go through every box, but we do have some idea of what is delivered to the school and this helps with dealing with issues)
hope this helps...
From my expierence home delivery would be great because the kids don't have to lug it and you don't have to put it out. If they have an item received in error, missing, broken or what not the company should have a hotline set up or you set up something where parents can call and report it this way the compan replaces it. Now after the initial home delivery I would have any of those error missing broken items delivered to the school this way you can guarenteed they were replaced. As far as refunds...that depends mostly on prepay or not. If you have never done a brochure sale before and need some advice, help, ideas what not feel free to email me and I'll help you. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. just remind me in the email that we talked about this (I tend to get a bit spacy)
I was presented a fundraising packet today and had some concerns. The company delivers to the customer not the school. I am guessing who they mean as customer is the child who brought the form home and not individual buyers. My questions are: IS this a good idea? How can we be sure of shortages / broken items, etc and how would we get credit for returned items that customers do not want replaced?
The brochure is a nice one and it has the basic prices and prizes. I'm just concerned someone, wheather it be a customer, a parent or the school could be cheated.
