We are currently using Scrip Advantage and are unhappy with their customer service, especially around the holidays. We are thinking of going to Great Lakes. I have heard only good things about them. We hope if we change companies and keep some on hand to sell, we will improve our bottom line. Has anyone had a bad experience with Great Lakes? Thanks.

A few months ago, I saw on the NCS Site that Wal-Mart had a scrip program through an Amex prepaid card. OK, i keep hearing about troubles some schools are having with NCS, but do they still have that card?

During the holidays we kept approximately $15,000 in inventory on hand and sell Cash and Carry 5 different times through the week. Since we began doing this we have been very successful in increasing sales and profit. Our profit over the holidays was $11,000. We also get complaints from the PTO about the inventory but it is critical to keeping people purchasing.

Hi Coprez, Thanks again for a great reply. We have a school of almost 800 students K-5 and we are a public school. We just started selling this August (school starts in September) and we have already profited about $1200. We have approx. 60 people who participate on a weekly - bi-weekly basis. I am glad to hear you are doing well we also do most sales with grocery stores as well as Kohl's. Neither Walmart or Target participate in any scrip program, nor do their individual stores sell large quantities of their gift cards at a discounted rate. Almost everyone at our school shops at one or the other or both, would be a big money maker if they participated but they offer other grants and Target has their 1% back to your school of choice Visa/Mastercard.
Great talking with you, thanks again and best of luck.

$3,000 seems like a good start. You're making a one-time investment unless you decide down the road it's not enough. I just spoke to one local school/church that keeps $20,000 on hand! That's the investment they decided to make. It's all in what you think you can sell, etc. She said they advertise to local contractors within the community and they buy $1,000-$2,000 in Home Depot or Lowes Hardware from them per month!

We're a Pre-K to 8th grade with 150 students. We are probably about 50/50 on the pre-sale vs. pre-order. We're a catholic school so we also sell at all weekend masses which is where most of our on-hand items are sold.

We keep on hand local grocery store, 3 restaurants, a local movie theater and 2 major department stores (Kohl's and Macey's). We do really well on the movie theater coupons. We can't keep them on stock. Everyone buys them for birthday gifts, etc.

I just asked on another board if anyone knows if Walmart would participat in scrip?

Hi Coprez, thanks for your reply. We currently are budgeted to have $3000 of on hand inventory. We do not keep the full $3000 on hand, we actually keep approximately $1800 - $2000 on hand and sell thru that amount in about 1-2 weeks. We order every week to replenish whatever was sold of our onhand cards and add our parent's preorders to that weekly order. We have our parent's pay for their preorders at the time they pick up their cards. I am glad to hear that you keep such a large quantity of cards on hand, it will certainly help substantiate our reason to keep cards on hand as well as pre order. Are you a K-5 school? How many students? ARe you making the most money on your prepay orders, or do you feel you are selling more of your on hands?