How to Make Your School Holiday Shop a Success

How to add value to your holiday school store experience.

It's approaching the time of year when schools bring in gift shops for their students. The holiday shop provides a way for students to shop for loved ones right in the confines of their school.

Gift shops, also known as Santa shops, are typically provided on a consignment basis. This means schools only pay for what they sell and return the rest. And fundraising companies usually don't charge for shipping the merchandise to or from the school either.

Some schools use holiday shops as a fundraiser; however, most provide them as a fun activity for their students. While many schools have already booked their dates, it's still not too late to sign up, as stores typically run either the first or second week of December.

Here are some ways that you can make your school holiday shop experience a successful one.

Make Your Store Appealing to Your Students

The first rule of thumb is to keep it simple. Your items should be marked and categorized when students enter your gift shop. Consider sorting gifts by recipient. For example, "I love Mom" or "I love Grandpa" are good categories that students can quickly identify.

If you're using your holiday shop as a fundraiser, this is a little more difficult, but try to set price points as low as possible to allow students to buy multiple gifts. Many students have a limited budget but several people that they want to shop for.

Be sure you have a limited number of students going through your store anytime. This makes it easier for you to monitor your students and make their experience more pleasant. You should also recruit enough people so each table has at least one volunteer. This will move the process of selecting and purchasing along more efficiently while providing a more personalized experience for your students.

Make Purchasing Gifts a Reality for All

By keeping your gifts at a reasonable price point, more students can afford them. However, a few may not be able to purchase without some help. Consider setting aside a few dollars from your parent group's 'rainy day' fund to help them. Schools that use our gift shop are offered an early signup bonus that involves offering ginger bucks to students in need or who might be a dollar or two short.

Learn about our Ginger Bucks program.

It's the Extra Touch that Counts

One additional idea is to incorporate a gift-wrapping station. You can assign a couple of your volunteers or let the students wrap their gifts. The company usually provides gift bags along with other school holiday shop tools.

See our Lil' Shopper's Shoppe

Author Bio

Clay Boggess has been designing fundraising programs for schools and various nonprofit organizations throughout the US since 1999. He’s helped administrators, teachers, and outside support entities such as PTAs and PTOs raise millions of dollars. Clay is an owner and partner at Big Fundraising Ideas.