I was browsing through and saw this post. We have used Reindeer Lane for 5 years and this past year was the best one yet. They changed ownership the year before and it was a bit challenging for us but they assured us they would have new merchandise this year. They did and it was 100% turnaround. We had no problems and the customer service was excellent. We will probably sign again for 2009 since they are giving an early sign bonus.
This year we are going to use our local dollar store, and clearanced items. we also will be using Kippbrothers too. To supplement for the mom, grandma, dad and grandpa items.
We foung the $1 store stuff did really well and when we went through our local xmas shoppe guy it was way over priced and cheesy. We are going to have some of the stuff, but at least we are cutting out the middle man.
Cindy
Cindy<br />
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<br>"People have the right to be stupid, but some abuse the privelege."
We use American Carnival Mart. They have a really neat Christmas Store. Very nice people to deal with. Good experience! New Christmas catalog should be done by the end of August. You get to pick the items that you want to sell.
A note on reindeer lane: For about 5 years, our school used them for the christmas shop. Well, the PTO group moved on to middle school, and last year we shopped around and found someone else to use (i forget their name). Reindeer Lane called, and wwe explainde to them that we were going with another company. they sent us a letter saying that because we had used them for so long, they had already pre-purchased for our school and wwe were going to be charged for it. We checked and there was no contract or anything between us and them. They kept on and on though, even saying there was no contract, but that we "owed" them because they thought we would be going with them. We got letters for about 6 months. the principal finally sat down and wrote them a letter. We still get phone calls and letters from them and it is 2 years later. We got a phone call on Thursday as a matter of fact. it was, for a while a very intimidating situation and kind of scary. We felt like they were trying to force us to use them because the past group had.
Anyway, just get all the information on them before you go through them.
We used them two years ago and it was not a great experience (I'm trying to be nice with how I word the experience we had with them). It was just way too much of an effort for items that were not of good quality for the amount the kids had to pay for them. We decided last year to shop ourselves (clearance racks, oriental trading, etc... the local dollar stores even gave us a discount) and it was much more enjoyable for both the volunteers and the kids. We only used Reindeer Lane that one time, so it could just be that it wasn't for us, but I have heard/read other stories of people who weren't too happy with their experiences. Good Luck! [img]smile.gif[/img]
