We used Arizona Fun Services for our Holiday Shop. Service was fine, quality of the items was fair. They also got items out to us in a timely manner if something was broken upon arrival. One drawback was that you don't know if something is going to be out of stock until your shop is running. There were some disappointed kids that wanted to buy a "Dad #1" pen the first day, didn't have the money and came back the next day, just to be told there were no more.
We probably will go with buying our own items on sale or through Oriental Trading or RINCO next year. The paperwork for any of those holiday gift shops seems too cumbersome for a larger school. Inventorying everything when it arrives is tough, especially if you have over 800 students at your school and you get over 30 boxes worth of gift items. I could feasibly see going with an outside company if you're a smaller school. Good luck [img]smile.gif[/img]
We had our first holiday shop since I have been at my child's school this year.
We chose Santa's Secret Shop through Jim Conti and Sons Fun Services. For us they were fairly local, they were extremely nice, you actually get to talk to a real person and not a computer, you get to run your shop the way you want, and they give a portion of what they make to the Make a Wish Foundation.
I know this is late but I just noticed your post, hope you have a successful Holiday Shop 2003!
Better late than never,lol! We used The Gingerbread Shop through Corral Fundraising b/c we also used them as our fundraiser and you get some perks if you do both. That said, we have decided next year we will solely stock our Santa Shop through a local warehouse and Oriental Trader-type catalogs b/c really, the products we got that way were cheaper and involved less headaches.
We were unaware that Corral, which has been an excellent co. for fundraising, is simply the go-between for the company that actually supplies the things for the Shop, and frankly, we were not impressed with either the quality or the prices. (Not to mention all the inventorying and paperwork,lol.)
Most metropolitan areas seem to have at least one wholesale warehouse open to the public-we paid a $10 fee to be able to pay even lower prices than were available to the general public, and it's good all year. And we sold out of practically everything we bought there, whereas a lot of stuff went back to the Gingerbread Shop due to being broken when we received it or overpriced.
Our school is investigating new companies for our annual Santa's Secret Shop. We have been increasingly unhappy with the company we've been doing business with over the last 3-4 years and desperately need a change. I have requested information packets from 3 companies advertising in PTO Today but was wondering if there are any others out there that you do business with.
Can anyone please tell me who you use and what you like/dislike about them. This would make our decision so much easier. Thank you.
