School Holiday Shops: The Basics of Getting Started

By Kids' Kastle Holiday Shoppes on December 9, 2021 / Holiday Fundraising, School Fundraising Tips

School Holiday Shops: The Basics of Getting Started

A school holiday shop is a great way to involve parents, teachers, students, and the wider community to come together and celebrate the spirit of Christmas. It also helps children get familiar with important life and social skills early on, making it a fun learning experience.

So, if you are planning to host your own school holiday store this year, this article will help you brush up on the basics to make it a success.

What’s a school holiday shop?

A school holiday shop is a place where kids can go to buy things for their family and friends. The shops are usually set up in the school itself or in an outside building nearby and sell items such as toys, books, and stationery that are affordable for students.

Also known as in-school gift shops, these shops may be run by charities, community groups or individuals, and small business owners. The aim of the shops is to help children pick out presents for their loved ones on their own and learn more about the responsibility that comes with shopping for the holidays.

Another beautiful thing about having a school Christmas shop is that it allows children to get familiar with important social skills in a controlled environment. They are a great opportunity for children to learn how to effectively communicate and interact with others when purchasing goods.

Tips to get the most out of your school holiday store

Before You buy the merchandise - Budget, Plan, Partner

Before you begin purchasing merchandise for the school holiday store, it is important to have a plan. First, you will have to decide where you will purchase your merch from. You can either handpick it by yourself, which is a very time-consuming task, or you can find a vendor that dedicatedly sells school Santa shop gifts.

Another thing to remember about buying your merch is that you need to decide on a budget and stick to it. Otherwise, you may end up with a lot of cool things that you may not be able to sell because there are too many.

That’s also why it is recommended that you partner with a school holiday shop company. You can select the items you want and the provider will deliver them to the school one week before the event so that you have enough time to set up your store. And if you don’t sell all your merch, you can always send it back to the provider without paying extra on freight costs.

Setting Up the Store - Location, Visibility, Accessibility

To get the most out of your school holiday store, you need to ensure that you get the fundamentals of selling right.

Make sure you book your stall early so that you can pick a strategic location for maximum exposure. A common piece of advice is to set up your store in a high-traffic area that is easily visible and accessible to kids as well as has footfall that is consistent throughout the day.

Another tip is to look at the past years’ sales of the stall and use that as a guide. It will not only give you information on how many people will come to your stall but also insights into how successful shops get the job done.

In addition, work on your signage. Make sure that is clear to read and has a color scheme that can draw attention to the stall. Also, ensure that the name of your store is visible to let people know exactly who’s running it.

Even if this is an in-school holiday shoppe, you want it to be visible, easily accessible, and inspiring! Get the students to help design signage and make the store accessible to parents who may visit, too.

School Partners - Teachers and PTA Members

To run a popular school holiday shop, you need a volunteer from the school staff to help you connect with the kids. Teachers can perfectly guide you on how to interact with the students and help you establish trust among your little shoppers.

You can also talk to the teachers about how much they think each student will spend and plan your pricing accordingly. For example, if each child is only going to be allowed $5, you can stock up on fewer items than if each child gets $25 for gifts because the budget will affect their spending potential.

Working with the teachers will also ensure you have enough people to man the stall on the days of the sale. Many schools will also talk to the PTA to get a better understanding of what the students want. School holiday shoppes like Kids’ Kastle even have a dedicated process for working with PTAs.

Promotion - Advertise Early and Often

Once you have outlined the responsibilities of each person, get to work on your marketing plan. Plan how you want to promote your shop. You can either individually talk to parents and families to let them know that you will be hosting a school holiday shop or send out messages or emails to simplify your promotion process.

Make sure you give out as many details to families about your store as possible, including the gifts that you are planning to stock and the dates you will be operating.

How working with elementary school holiday shop companies can make your job easy

Holiday shop services are designed to make running a holiday shop easier for you. The provider will not only supply you with merchandise but also provide you with materials needed to run the store successfully, right from bags to posters to tablecloths.

Therefore, even though you will not be creating selling or marketing materials yourself, you will still have a good-looking and inviting shop that will draw people into your shop. They will also take care of the shipping and returns so that you can focus on having a good time running your school holiday store.

How to Promote Your Virtual School Fundraiser

By Kids' Kastle Holiday Shoppes on November 20, 2020 / School Fundraising Tips

How to Promote Your Virtual School Fundraiser

7 Easy Tips for Promoting Your Online Holiday Shoppe

Putting together a school holiday shop fundraiser virtually can feel like a challenge. Parents and schools are tasked with finding a way to raise money for their schools while giving kids their dose of holiday cheer — all online.

Here at the Kids’ Kastle, we’ve put together three school holiday shoppe options that run the gamut from safely hosted in-person, entirely virtual, and a hybrid for schools that need both. Opting for a virtual holiday shop is just the first part of putting the fundraiser together, however.

In order to ensure your holiday virtual fundraising is a success, we’ve put together 7 great tips for how to promote your virtual holiday shop, so kids get all the cheer and the schools can raise their much-needed funds with low stress and great success.

Announce Your Virtual Secret Santa Shop via Email Marketing

Email marketing is a tried and true method that we can’t recommend enough. Whether your school is in-person or online, every parent is checking their email frequently so they don’t miss out on important updates.

Send out a newsletter to all parents announcing the virtual holiday shop for this year. Even if you go with a standard or hybrid in school holiday shoppe, your newsletter can outline all the precautions you are taking and how parents and kids can order this year.

Make sure the newsletter uses bright colors, bold text, and gets straight to the point. Include a line asking parents to forward news about the virtual fundraising events to all of those who may be interested, to create more hype and further interest in the event.

Share Your Secret Santa Shop on Social Media

Candy fundraisers are typically something you’d see for baseball, softball, and other sports’ teams, but there’s nothing like a good candy drive, especially if you buy in bulk and give people options when purchasing what they want.

It might sound like a unique school fundraiser, but in truth, it’s taking virtual fundraiser ideas for schools and expanding it a bit to ensure that people have more than one choice and can buy what they want while helping with a good cause. Utilizing New Jersey school fundraising companies that offer multiple candy options is a great way to expand on the traditional candy fundraiser.

Take Advantage of Partnerships for Your Holiday Shoppe

Are there any local businesses that are helping you run your school holiday shop this year? Ask them to help you spread the word!

Whether they do so on-site at their business, mention it in their newsletters, post about it on social media, or just talk about it with their clients, it’s another great way to get news about your virtual fundraiser out there.

Partnerships for school fundraisers are generally focused on promoting the school as much as possible, so don’t be shy about asking for a little social boost from your school fundraising partners.

Even if your school is hosting its holiday shoppe on its own, reach out to other partners you’ve worked with in the past and see if they’ll include a link to your virtual fundraising on their website, social apps, or email newsletters.

Don’t Forget Mailed Newsletters & Postcards for Holiday Gift Shops

Sometimes, the best school fundraisers are going to be those that will be able to promote some type of social distancing while still keeping things fun and engaging. While a virtual party isn’t quite the same, it’s a fun way to connect with people and maintain a good line of communication among the community.

Games can even be planned online that will be fun for everyone involved, for a small donation of course. Have online raffles, promotions, talent shows, and more! The great thing about a virtual party is that everyone can attend!

When in Doubt, Use Word of Mouth for Your Secret Santa Shoppe

Nothing works better for school fundraising promotion than a personal recommendation via word of mouth. Hype up the hybrid or virtual holiday gift shop to parents, teachers, and even the students. The more excited everyone is, the more they will talk about it, share the news, and encourage others to get involved.

At the end of the day, the results are all focused on the kids, so if this is your highlight for your Secret Santa Gift Shop, snifty pencils people will be more than willing to share the news with others in their life. This year, people could use holiday cheer more than ever!

Holiday Gift Shoppes are Easily Promoted with a Catchy Tagline

Another way to spread the word about your school’s holiday gift shop is with a catchy tagline. Mention the fun for the kids, the great gifts, or just include something optimistic and fun that makes people smile!

If your promotional materials bring joy, more people will choose to get involved with the virtual holiday shoppe and tell their friends about it.

Make Sure Your Virtual Fundraiser Has a Great Graphic Design

No matter what avenue you opt for for your holiday fundraising, make sure you have a great graphic to promote it! Something with bright colors, a big title, and a fun image will capture everyone’s attention and make them want to be apart of the fun.

Include a stellar graphic as part of your to-do list when organizing the virtual fundraiser, as this is more likely to get people involved.

10 Tips to Promote Your School Fundraiser

By Kids' Kastle Holiday Shoppes on August 21, 2020 / School Fundraising Tips

how to make promoting your school fundraiser easier

10 Tips For Promoting Your School Fundraisers

Good fundraising ideas for schools aren’t hard to come by — it is the challenge of promoting your new fundraiser that can take some time and planning. By successfully promoting your school fundraiser, you have a better chance of raising the funds you need and getting everyone involved. To be successful with your fundraising promotion, you will want to get your community involved and gain their support for a successful fundraiser from start to finish.

To make the best plan for promoting your school fundraiser, you’ll consider if you’re selling food or toys/products, catering to a younger or older demographic, and what seasonal items are trending at the time of sales. Your traditional school fundraisers, like holiday candles or classic catalogs, are often easy to promote. But if you’re thinking outside the box for high school fundraising ideas or school holiday shops, you may need to get a little creative with how you promote your school fundraiser this season to parents and the community.

We’ve put together some of the best ways to get your fundraising ideas noticed, so your promotion is easy, simple, and successful. Get the best sales this year by following our easy school fundraiser promotion guide.

1) Get the Message Out About Your New Fundraising Ideas for School

If you want your new fundraising idea to get attention, it will require getting your message out to the people you believe will be the most influential. You target audience will influence their friends, other parents, and the rest of the community to get involved. It’s important to find people who are passionate about your fundraising ideas so they will be eager to share the news.

2) Keep a Limit on the Number of School Fundraisers That are Live

No matter what type of fundraising ideas you are hosting, too many fundraisers at once will overburden both school staff and volunteers. You want to keep your fundraising to a minimal not to overwhelm parents who are boosting and selling the items.

High school fundraising can suffer in a big way from trying to run too many fundraisers at once because it can overwhelm students and parents as they attempt to fit different activities into their already busy schedules. Remember, fundraisers should fit naturally into social, educational, and work environments for all involved.

Try to keep fundraisers to two max per season — if Sports and Arts do their fundraisers in the Fall, then have the school run their general fundraiser in the Spring. For families who have kids in multiple activities and social clubs, this balance is key for successfully promoting your fundraiser.

3) Encourage People to Think of Fundraisers as Gifts

When promoting non-food items from your fundraiser, you want to promote your products as great gift ideas for birthdays, Christmas, Hanukkah, and more. Selling your fundraising items as gifts for birthdays, holidays, celebrations, and more, it’s possible to convince people that not only is the non-food fundraiser for a good cause, but it’s a clever gift idea as well that will be one less thing they need to shop for.

Make their seasonal and holiday shopping so much easier by allowing them to buy all their gifts directly from your fundraiser while supporting a good cause all at once.

4) Make Your Easy School Fundraiser a Little More Personalized with Local Promotion

Good fundraising ideas for a school effectively involve the local community and bring people together. Putting a personal touch on a fundraiser, such as gaining a local sponsor or making it clear what the funds are going to, will make people feel more invested and more likely to participate.

When people feel connected to a cause, they are more enthusiastic to be involved. So, promote your school fundraiser by partnering with locals or showcasing directly where the funds are going to in order to improve sales and overall success.

5) Diversify Between Food and Non-Food Fundraisers

If you are used to selling candy bars or promoting frozen food items for your high school fundraising, it’s time to mix it up! Non-food fundraisers can be fantastic fundraising ideas for schools, and offer the opportunity to explore events, gifts, raffles, and more.

Use your resources to think outside the box and see what other non-food fundraisers you can dream up. Promote special offers your fundraiser is offering with all non-food fundraising items. Highlight that you have more than just candy bars or baked goods but gifts and products that are useful and decorative, lasting all year long.

If your grade school or high school fundraiser is a raffle, event, other promotional giveaway, push this announcement so people are more likely invest.

6) Good Fundraising Ideas for School Will Take Advantage of Different Seasons

The time of year your fundraising runs can be especially pertinent when considering what kind of goods your fundraiser will be selling and how to promote your school fundraiser. Certain items are more popular according to different seasons, especially when it comes to food items that are considered seasonal and non-food items that can be given as gifts.

Use all the seasons so your school fundraisers can also coincide with other events in order to take advantage of the community’s goodwill and willingness to contribute to a good cause. The more seasons you fundraise in, the better off your school will be! Make fun seasonal puns, highlight how immediately your fundraising items can be used, and pull on seasonal holidays like Easter, Christmas, Hannukah, and birthdays.

7) Highlight the Benefits of Your Non-Food Fundraising Products

The more creative your fundraising idea is the more enticing it might be to your community. Many people are simply willing to give to a good cause in order to help those in their community, but there are those that want to know that they’ll get a little something for their donation.

Coming up with creative ways to promote your fundraiser can go a long way towards satisfying those that are willing to donate to your cause, as it gives them something new and unexpected that excites them. Don’t just talk about where the money is going but what your buyers will receive and how it makes their life easy.

8) Parent Involvement in High School Fundraising is a Bonus

Parent involvement at any level is important, but when it comes to high school fundraising, often the students are expected to self-start and find ways to earn money for their schools without parent support.

Gaining the support of more parent volunteers makes it obvious that the community is able to stand together and work towards the common good of the youth, even as the youth are expected to follow the example of their community leaders by helping to plan and operate their own fundraisers. Plus, parents can provide more resources and more areas to advertise than students alone. Use a combination of student-led fundraising and parent support in your high school fundraising.

9) Keep Your Fundraising Ideas Versatile and Consider Your Sales Territory

Coming up with fundraising ideas can be difficult from time to time, but there are plenty of sites that can offer up different methods and techniques when it comes to fundraising. Sometimes running the same fundraiser a year or two in a row can work, but keeping things versatile is often preferable since this will offer the community a bit of variety. It’s also important to think about your sales territory and to adjust as needed.

Don’t forget that communities can change and spreading out to other areas could help increase awareness and possibly gain added funding. Always keep your base plan, but don’t be afraid to explore new avenues!

10) Many Good Fundraising Ideas for School Focus on Getting the Kids Involved First

More often than not, fundraisers are held for the benefit of a school, and the kids that attend the school. This means that involving the children should be one of the primary ideas when it comes to any fundraiser. Get them excited in some way by telling the kids what the money will go for, how it will benefit them, and why it’s important that they help to make it happen. When the kids are involved and a part of the process, the community is more likely to support their children to add to their excitement and success.

Wrapping Up

Good fundraising ideas for schools don’t have to be super-complicated or even grandiose in nature, like a bake sale, selling candy bars or poinsettia’s, or even having a raffle that community members can take part in. Many businesses throughout a community will want to help in some way, and volunteers are rarely hard to find when it comes to helping out a local school or charity. Do your research when planning out your fundraiser, and remember the most important part of all, have fun with it. When you are excited, your volunteers will be excited, and promotion will happen naturally.

School Fundraising Tips