Hi! I've been away for a couple months (but did receive a top City PTA award while I was gone!!), and I noticed that this thread was bumped up from the bottom.
I never had a chance to update this thread with the results of our do-it-yourself style Santa Shop, but after reading the crazed post above this one I thought that a more moderate opinion was in order. Here we go:
Our Santa Shop was held over 2 days in early December. (We are a 100% free lunch, Title I School.) We had a total of 85 unique gift items, plus a full-size Scholastic Books Warehouse Sale (Hey, books make great gifts too!). Items were purchased from both local and national stores and wholesalers. We maintained total control over the quality of the goods, as well as their price. Average markup was 50%, more if we got a bargain on the item, but NO item was priced over $3.50 (lets see a santa shop company do that!).
Instead of heaping the tables with goods (too disorganized), we placed one of each of the items on the tables, grouped according to the recipient (kids, men's, women's, misc) along with a note card with the description, price and item #.
The students were issued in advance an gift list including all 85 items. They brought their list and their $$ to the Shop, chose their items, noted them on their sheet, shopped for books then hit the checkout. The orders were bagged up and sent directly to the classrooms by the end of the day. We also held a "family night" and sold thirty 20pc stoneware dish sets for $3.50 each as an enticement - they were gone in an hour!
Here's the bottom line:
Gross Sales $4000 (400 students in school)
Net Profit $1200 (After ALL expenses, including my gas, lunch daily for Shop Workers, Free Items for Students in need, $200 in Books for library)
5 Hours per day
2-3 PTA Volunteers/Day (5th Graders volunteered as well to help K/1st Grade)
Items Sold: 1925
Parent Feedback: 100% Positive, 2 letters to the school board praising the sale, etc. 0% Dissatisfied Students/Parents.
Most Popular Items:
Mens's/Women's Watches $3.50 (we paid $4.48, but what the heck),
Giant-Size Kellogg's Cereal Bowl w/ matching spoons $3.50
Basketballs $3.50.
CONCLUSION: We will do the Santa Shop in the same way next year, but add opportunites for the students to get involved by making more of the gifts at after-school craft parties (pouring candles, making jewelry, etc). We might bump up the maximum price to $4.50 just to include a few more items (better perfume, walkmans, legos). We had 4 Storage Tubs of merchandise left over which was used at the Silent Auction, Spring Fling, Teacher Appreciation; We also had a teachers-only "yard sale" one morning and let them buy leftovers at cost for their student reward boxes. There was no damaged items, no returns, wonderful!
I will provide more info on our shop to anyone that emails me to request, and I am also looking for a few schools (NE Ohio/NW PA) that might want to band together and buy in bulk. We could have made another $1000 if we had gotten together with other schools and used the same list. Email if interested. Sorry so long, thanks for reading!!
[ 05-25-2004, 11:31 PM: Message edited by: PTA Renegade ]