I have been running our Santa Shop for about 7 years. Our school has approx. 800 kids from grades K-6. We decided long ago that doing our own shopping was not only more economical, but resulted in much better gift choices. Our Santa Shop is not run during school, but 2 nights in a row after school. We time it with some large grade level performances at the school which help bring in even more families to shop. It is also open to our community, not just our school families. One of the largest additions we made a few years ago was adding a vendor fair throughout the hallways. We now have about 40 vendors that come and sell their products or advertise their business. We charge them a nominal fee to rent a table (we provide) for both nights. So while kids are shopping in Santa Shop, our adults are out shopping the vendors (the adults like to shop in Santa Shop as well). We make about $1000 off of the vendors and another $2000 off of Santa Shop and then we also added Santa’s Snack Shop with cookies, hot chocolate and more and typically make a few hundred off of that as well. Our music teacher offers up small groups of student carolers. Our student council has a donation/free gift wrapping station. We invite Santa and Mrs. Claus one of the nights. We also do a poinsettia same and time the pickup during Santa Shop hours. It has basically grown to become this huge fun event! We love it.
We purchase all sorts of items for Santa Shop so we cover the spectrum of gift recipients, moms, dads, siblings, babies, grandparents, friends, teachers, pets, etc... Our prices for items range from $0.25 up to $20.00. Some of my favorite places to shop for Santa Shop...
Five Below
Christmas Tree Shops
Old Time Pottery
Dollar Tree (other Dollar Stores)
Kipp Brothers
Rhode Island Novelty
Target
Menards
Michaels
Hobby Lobby
Wish.com
Ali Express
Was your shop successful? We are also a small school (65kids) We want to do a shop mostly for the kids smiles but we don't want to lose money either. We plan to buy things ourself.
This past summer Penguin Patch contacted me about doing a Holiday shop with them this year. As it was during the summer, I told them I could not sign any agreements until the school year had begun and we had a vote with our members. I was told that if I agreed to take a presentation back to my board that we would be entered into a drawing for four $400 Disney gift certificates.
Once school started in September I took the information & shared it with our members that voted no, and our ASB as a way for them to earn some extra money. They two declined, so I called and told my rep, that we would not be able to run the store this year.
Long story short, they sent the stuff anyway, I called and it was agreed that I would sent it back. Yet somehow after this was agreed and they admitted their mistake due to the rep I spoken with leaving, We are now being charged $500 for a cancelation on something that we never agreed to sale.
Due to this, I would never encourage someone to do business with Penguin Patch Holiday Shop, and after I did my research I am not the only person who would suggest that you take your business elsewhere. They regularly do this sort of thing to Non-Profit PTO/PTA's that are raising money to help students. The four $400 Disney gift certificates seem to have never been awarded, or at least they don't have it listed anywhere on their website. This company is a scam, that takes advantage of parent volunteers.
Our school used a company to run our holiday shop last year and it was just ok. A couple moms and I are going to try and run our own this year. I am realizing that we should have started buying things a long time ago! We haven't even started shopping yet! Wondering what sources are good for items that have mom, dad, grandma, grandpa etc. on them - like mugs, pens, keychains...
Thanks for any shopping leads
