You guys are awesome - thanks you for the advice

I am still working the numbers, but we hemeraged heavily on the $$ over this last year, so we are cleaning house so to speak and getting our house in order!

Spirit Shirts were a big one for our school...here's what we did.

Our school is Catholic, and we had a t-shirt design that was a two-color design. We used the fish (often seen on vehicles) with the American flag inside. It became so popular that we had to order as many adult shirts as kid shirts.

In our second year of the same shirt pattern, we sold 600 shirts. We used a man who went to our church to do the printing...and lots of smiles and a little groveling got us a great price. We paid $4.75 per shirt with no setup fees, as my husband was able to do the color breakouts in a drawing program on our home pc.

We had only one screen setup charge because the logo on front was pocket-sized...they were able to use the same screen for both sides of the shirt. Many companies don't publicize that they can do this, but they generally can and choose not to pass the savings on to you.

The P.E. department allowed students to wear this shirt to P.E. instead of the standard uniform t-shirt. We charged $9.00 per shirt and couldn't keep enough in for most of the year. Our profits were about $2550.

I think the price of the shirt doesn't necessarily matter that much as long as it is of good quality and not more than $10. No one is going to walk away from a great design for a great school over $2 or $3.

Try to order in quantities over 150 at a time for the price break, and ask your supplier to tell you what's on sale before you make your final decision on a shirt. Also--keep in touch with your supplier to find out when a shirt will be on sale again for reorders.

If you're around Texas, I can share the name of the supplier with you...just e-mail me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Paige

I've done t-shirts for a few different organizations and really recommend finding a local company. I did the ones for our fifth grade students this year,provided my own artwork for the front, then had a list of all the fifth graders for the back and I think it cost about $5.50 a shirt. If you are using the same screen every year, it should be very inexpensive. We used a company in the next town over (my town doesn't have anyone) so if there was a mistake or we wanted to get a few more quickly, it was very easy to do.

I also did them for our Boy Scout troop with a different vendor and they were only $4.00 each, but he didn't charge us a set up fee, and probably didn't make much profit - his son was in our troop. Shop around. Our hs band t-shirts are the same ones we use every year and ( I think) are overpriced at $5.50 each.

If you are seeking suppliers, I suggest you start with word-of-mouth references and your yellow pages ("Screen printing", "Advertising - Promotional"). We try to support local businesses with such purchases. Ask about the prices, of course, but also setup charges, minimum order quantities, and delivery times. (Be be sure to check references.)

T-Shirts are ALWAYS hard to track. If you have them accessible enough to sell during school hours and at events, that usually means they are accessible to a variety of people and some come up missing. And unless you are using a cash register with itemization or rigid system where individual items sold are tracked, it's hard to keep the numbers sold, because people buy them in conjunction with other things (membership, school packs, etc.)

Pricing depends on your objective. Ours is mostly a service, so we want to cover our costs plus a little extra in case the entire inventory isn't sold. I think ours are $7.50 for child sizes and $8.50 for adults. (Personally, I think it's better if you can set the prices in even dollars.) The really big sizes may have and additional charge.

If you don't have good data to use as a basis for ordering your original inventory, you can always just use pre-paid orders. Everyone fills out an order form with payment by a certain date. Then you place your orders. This delays getting the shirts a couple weeks, but can be nice because you can offer more variety (long sleeve, sweatshirts, etc.)

If you do this, know your dates (when you will place the order, when shirts will arrive) and ask your vendor for sample t-shirts in all the common sizes in the color and brand you are ordering. (Probably just plain, they may not be willing to do a sample run that small - but you could ask.) This allows the parents to see the quality of the shirt and test sizes if they aren’t sure what size to order.

If you need a sample T-shirt order form, email me and I can share one.

[ 08-20-2004, 11:51 AM: Message edited by: JHB ]

We provide t-shirts to all NEW students each year. Then we offer them for sale for returning students who have outgrown them. We sell them primarily at open house day and back to school night which allows us to keep better control. We too have had problems accounting for missing shirts but I guess that is going to happen. If you sell them at a particular day and time, most people buy them there. We use Friday Casuals by Wearhouse, Inc. They are good because once you set up the shirt there is no minimum order. It is a great school spirit thing plus the kids are required to wear them for field trips, etc.

Does your PTO provide the spirit wear (t-shirts and sweatshirts with school logo)?

Our did last year and we have no idea how many sold and how much came in (don;t ask - last year was our first as a school and we had quite a few bumps in the PTO but I am sure we can smooth it out)

I am concerned about leaking money in this venture. the pricipal kept most of them in his office and put the money and checks in our petty cash box, but no record of how many, how much etc.

We are "stealing" them back and doing a complete inventory. I am also interested in finding another supplier - any suggestion? suggested prices too!

thanks

annie