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We have a school store that sells apparel, stickers, socks, belts, etc. It's a pretty large space with a good assortment, but it barely makes money each year. Coaches of various sports can sell their own sports apparel outside of the school store, so I blame it on us competing with ourselves. If I'm a football player, am I going to buy school branded stuff, or am I going to buy a football shirt? I am tasked with taking it over next year to see if it can improve, and if I can't fix it, it will be outsourced.
Here's my first question: What are some fun or unique things your school store (or any dept) does or sells at your school that's been a hit? We need to drum up some new interest.
I thought about setting up a rack in the cafeteria next year, kind of like a "sidewalk sale", to literally put items in front of the kids while they sit there. We also have projectors in the cafeteria, so I thought we could feature sale items on other days.
Second question: If the school store goes away, what do you do with a large space with built-in cabinets, bathrooms, and a front-facing glass wall?
This made me laugh. In one middle school where I taught for about 8 years the typing teacher (yes, that dates me) and I took on the school store. It was fine. But without consulting me she ordered a gross of tote bags with our school name and logo. It took 5 years to get rid of them, and then we were often giving them away as prizes.
I’ve never seen a school store. I wonder if you could sell healthy-ish snacks? Individually packaged pickles, chicken or tuna snack packs, jerky, edamame, etc are options.
Back in the day, our school store sold school supplies and that was pretty much it. Do they not sell school supplies anymore?
Some things that the students might like to buy: Candy bars - not the regular kinds that you can buy in vending machines, but the kinds that you can buy during fund raisers. Gourmet cookies and muffins (like Otis Spunkmeyer). Protein bars, Quest cookies.
This made me laugh. In one middle school where I taught for about 8 years the typing teacher (yes, that dates me) and I took on the school store. It was fine. But without consulting me she ordered a gross of tote bags with our school name and logo. It took 5 years to get rid of them, and then we were often giving them away as prizes.
Sounds about right. Our store sells stickers, and other departments give school-related stickers away. It doesn't appear that they did a lot of research on what might sell or have good margins.
I'm a longtime PTA Board member at my kids' schools at the Elementary and Middle School level and a volunteer at the HS level and can say that WRT selling food items, there are a lot of rules in place that come from some combination of the USDA, State and district and those rules can vary depending on the grade level(s) at the campus.
These rules (and fines and penalties for breaking them) are in place, as I understand it, so as to limit direct competition with food sales at the school. At my 6th grader's school, for example, we can only sell food items after or outside of school hours; we absolutely cannot sell anything during lunch. At my 9th grader's High School, however, we are allowed to do sales during lunch on a limited basis. These are both schools in the same district a mile away from each other.
Never heard of a school store in a public K-12 school.
What is the stated purpose of the store? To provide items at lower cost than other retail establishments? To sell school logo items? To make a profit?
In my experience, school stores are often run by the PTA/PTSA/PTO or other volunteer organization and exist to sell items the students might need (supplies) or logo merchandise (clothing) and the proceeds (revenue, not profit, since these are nonprofit entities) almost always go back to the organization, and ultimately, to the school.
one of the most successful money-raisers that our high school ever did, and continued to do over and over and it just got more and more popular, was an idea that came from the kids, not from the adults thinking "what would be good to sell".
it entailed no cash outlay, no inventory was required, all money was collected in advance (paid in advance) then the items were purchased elsewhere and delivered to the kids in class. it was awesome, one of the highlights i remember from high school and i am not kidding (i am 64 now).
it was flower delivery, carnation delivery to be exact. a student could order 1 or 2 or 6 or a dozen carnations, pay in advance, write a small card or tag to be attached to the flowers, pick the color of the carnations (white or pink or yellow or blue) and the best part was (this is brilliant and what made it such a success), the person buying them not only picked out who the flowers would be delivered to, but specified which classroom and which period for the flowers to be delivered. So literally during the class, the delivery person (students who were running running the fundraiser) would walk into the class, walk over to Robert and hand him long stemmed carnations in front of the whole class, and then walk out.
it was the best thing! because everybody in the class could see oooooooh robert got flowers and speculate about who they were from and it caused quite a stir. people of course got very competitive, wanting to make an even bigger splash, so instead of sending 2 or 3 flowers (the price was by the flower, i don't remember the price, but there was a profit on every flower sold) people would opt for bigger bunches like 6 or 8 or 10 or even 12. oh, and not only was there the attention of receiving the flowers in class, but then the person who received the flowers, walked around with them all day going from class to class and everybody in all their classes could see oooooooh he got flowers. big splash, lots of attention. it was great.
and of course people could send them anonymously that was fun too. or the person could read the card with everyone watching and get embarrassed. it was the best. I to this day remember getting 12 pink carnations from a friend and I still have the card and have kept it for decades. teachers didn't mind the interruptions in class, because they knew it was for a school fundraiser. and deliveries were coordinated so any given class only had one interruption, even if there were say 4 or 5 different bouquets delivered, the delivery person just walked around and passed them out to the different people and left.
it started as a one-time thing (for some holiday like Valentine's Day) but it was so popular, and so easy, and made so much money that they did it for a bunch of different times during the year. we could not get enough of it. and it was easy to buy the carnations in bulk. after all the orders and money were collected, say for 150 carnations, a mom or two drove the student who was working the fundraiser to the florist to get the flowers. When the quantities got to be so large, and florists did not have that many on hand, we just ordered them in advance. and based on when the flowers actually arrived, then deliveries to the classroms were set up.
Tzaphkiel, when was this? Now you would be crucified for creating anxiety, objectifying females, objectifying males, making people feel bad about themselves for not getting flowers, etc., etc.
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