Your ultimate guide to launching a webstore to collect Field Day orders for your 2024 Field Day event.
Below I will outline the good, the bad (we can't find any), and the ugly of online stores!
Field Day T-Shirt Online Stores:
During the 2020 pandemic we started launching online stores for schools who were doing school virtually. Since then, the online store game has not slowed down! It's become the most popular choice for schools and PTO parents who want to do shirt orders, but don't want to deal with the headache of collecting orders and chasing money. Eventually, this will most likely be the only way people do Field Day orders.
Below I'll go through how it works and highlight why it may or may not work for your school.
How it works?
You start by requesting an online store on our website. (Fundraising tab). You fill out the informaiton you'd like included on the store (for example shirt design, shirt colors, and your deadlines to ensure shirts are delivered in plenty of time). Note 3 things about online stores below to consider:
• We do charge a $3 fee per item sold (this bring your base price to $10.25/each).
• Do you want the shirts shipped USPS to each parent at their house -or- bulk shipped to the school for distribution? (Most schools do bulk shipping to the school).
• Choosing your deadline. Give yourself plenty of time to distriute the shirts. We ask for 3 weeks total to produce, fold, and ship.
Is it really worth the extra money?
One thing teachers and parents have relayed to us is that after doing an online store they will never go back! Many schools are no longer allowed to handle money and this is also a great option for them. We collect all of the orders, handle money (credit card disputes) and bag and tag the shirts for you by student and teacher name. If a parent needs to change a size before the order is processed (no worrries, we handle that too).
Why do you charge more?
We get it. $3 more per shirt is alot. Here's what we have found after running hundreds of stores. The parents were already paying $15 a shirt (in most cases), and that still leaves the school a profit of $4.75 per shirt. If you sell conservatively 100 shirts you just made $475 for doing nothing! Think about it, all you do is share a link through email or text to your parents. No more tallying, lost order forms, no more missed deadlines, and most importantly no more setting up volunteers to package shirts up based on paper order forms. Missing shirts? We handle all of that before it leaves our floor- every order is packaged and checked before leaving our warehouse. We also send 5 extra shirts with each order just in case.
Tips for promoting your online store:
We want you to be succesful! We will provide you with a QR code linking to your store. We will also provide you with a social media flyer that can be used. In our experience emailing the link to parents (and texting if you have that set up at your school) is the best way to share the store link. One thing to be mindful of when sharing online store links is that social media platforms (such as Facebook or Instagram) will not show any posts you make with a link to an extrenal website. The reason they do this is because they don't want users leaving their social media platform. So if you share the link on a Facebook page alone- odds are your parents won't see the link. You can however share a social media fllyer reminding parents to check their email and / or the QR Code. At the end of the day we are succesful if you are sucessful so if there's anything we can do to make your Field Day shirt sale a success just ask!