We contract with a local company, I believe they are affiliated with the Young Shoppers Club. I'll admit that it is a daunting task to set up as you have to inventory everything they send and then re-inventory everything you send back, but...
They pay for shipping, they provide you with EVERYTHING you need and you don't have to put out money ahead of time. My complaint is that their items can be a bit shoddy and overpriced, so even upping the prices 50 cents per item makes it unreasonable. We don't make a profit from the holiday shop as it is right now. We are, however, working towards making it something different. This year, we were able to go shopping at Christmas Tree Shops to purchase some items we can "make our own" so to speak and make a bit more profit off of their sale. We still have all the supplies from the company we contracted to use, and will use alot of their merchandise, but if I know something isn't going to sell, I simply won't put it out. And if it's really junk, again, we won't put it out. I'm not sure if that helped at all. The problems with purchasing items ahead of time is having the capital in which to do it and the space to store it, not to mention the profits to lose money when your "sure fire hit" blows up in your face as has happened to us in the past with other projects.
I wouldn't pre-wrap...no way! At least the young shoppers give us gift bags. They are simple and easy to put together. A couple of staples and a sharpie is all you need!
Our first year doing a Santa Shop we wwent thru a company. We found the items to be overpriced. Last year and will be doing the same this year we are purchasing the items ourselves.
We go to local stores and buy merchandise from their clearance shelves, order some items form Oriental Trading, and Dollar store items. We also purchase purse size hand creams, lip balms, jewelry sets from Avon.
We do not have the time for wrapping gifts. Last year I brought some gift wrap and we wrapped a few for the Kindergarten classes. The time is limited for each class to shop, they usually have to do on the way to and from lunch giving them 15-30 min. top. It is a rush to go thru their shopping lists.
We purchase bags from an Avon rep. (very inexpensive!!!) and staple bags closed. Last year we kept everything at $5.00 and under!!! It gave all the students a chance to shop!!
Gifts for Dads/Grandpas....money clips, manicure sets,coffee mugs, footballs, cologne, pens, tool kits, tape measures, flashlights, work gloves, compass, tv remote holders, golf towels, fising items, and keychains.
Our Santa shop is more of a craft show. The vendors are not allowed to charge more than $10 per item and most are $5 and much lower. All has to be homemade and there is a committee that will inspect items before the kids start shopping. They will then have to remove items that do not meet requirements. We always have at least 15 volunteers for wrapping. The older Girl Scout troops have put together bags out of wrapping paper for easier wrapping. Parents will donate wrapping paper, tags, tape if you only ask.
Why pre-wrap. You're taking the fun away from the child by wraping their gifts for them. Our school gives the child bags with a pre-printed gift tag on them so the child can use them to wrap the gifts or the parent will help them. To wrap all those gifts (and you have to make sure that nothing is broken before wrapping) is a huge undertaking and may cause concern for parents when they don't know, for sure, what their child purchased. I know I would want to see what my son purchased before he presented it to someone in the family.
Our school successfully ran our own Holiday Shop after much frustration from companies that came into the school. I admire you for taking on such a challenge-the rewards are well worth it, watching the kids have fun while shopping (and not for extremely overpriced junk) has encouraged me to run things again this year. After reading your post I checked out my inventory list from last year for mens items. (I'm very late with my shopping this year!) Things we offered included hankercheif's, calendars, umbrellas, keychains, ice scrappers, CD holders, football frames, "Dad" ornaments, Texas Holdem' sets, Nascar memo pads, Nutcrackers. You aren't alone in trying to find quality items for Men-Womens items are much easier. I will say that the Womens items sold much quicker than our Mens items. When we closed shop at lunch I had to go out an buy more womens merchandise.
As for bags, we used printed holiday bags (10 for $1 at Dollar Store) for small items, we received a donation of white craft handled bags w/ tissue paper for medium items. I've had no luck in getting any donations this year and will have to buy them about $75 for 250-Look for bag companies in your area. Anything else we wrapped. I've already put the word out that we will need lots of adult help this day. This is where we had the longest lines at our shop. It's a wonderful opportunity for not only parents, but grandparents and family friends to volunteer their time and to get in the holiday spirit.
I should also say that all of our merchandise is priced at $2, with a five item limit per student. When shopping for items for the store we try to buy things priced between $1 and $1.50; Thankfully we have a lot of deal finders in our parent group. Pricing everything at $2 worked really well as many kids spent their own money and it wasn't the hassle of trying to figure out how much to spend on each person-Mom and Dad get $5 each, but Grandma and Grandpa only $3 each.
Good luck and have fun. Don't let that scrooge bring you down!
