We use New England Scrip. We didn't even look at Great Lakes, maybe we'll have to!! New England offered more local companies/stores and another company we had looked at. Plus they were very close to us, were on the Cape, so they have even come to our school to see cards on Meet the Teacher Night. Which really did great and helped the parents understand what Scrip is all about. I would think that most of our families use the cards in the stores themselves rather than online.
We have been very happy with New England Scrip so far.
We have been using Great Lakes since September and couldn't be happier. They are wonderful - no backorders, no long wait times on the phone. I don't know anything about NE Scrip...but Great Lakes is wonderful. About what parents use...Both! At Christmas time many parents buy cards as gifts, or many start buying $20/week of Toys R Us or KB to save up like a Christmas club. Once they get used to it, the more they order. We also do grocey certificates (we buy tem direct from the grocer stores themselves) and they are very popular too. Typically, grocery stores offer 5%. Theya re the only certs we stock. all others are ordered weekley and "on demand." It's a great program and you'll do great.
I don't know anything about New England but we changed from NSC to GL in August and have been very pleased. Even through the holidays, we did not have any back orders that took more than 1 wk to receive and it was a small amount. We order on Tues. before 11am and receive our order Thurs. at 10:30am. They are great and I highly recommend them. Good luck! Its a great program. Don't get discouraged to soon. We are in our 3rd year and it seems to finally be clicking with our parents how easy it really is. We are really doing them a favor offering this program because we are a one stop shopping center!!!
We are looking into using a Scrip Center and starting a scrip program. From all the postings, I don't think we'll use NSC. We are looking at both Great Lakes and New England. The New England site seems to offer more local vendors, but a lot less vendors. Anyone know much about either? Decided between the two? Also, do your parents use the cards directly in the store mostly, or do they use them to order on-line (in which case local wouldn't matter as much). Thanks in advance for all the help.
