Some of the basics of running a successful school spirit wear shop is counterintuitive. Knit Wit Apparel has helped schools run successful school fundraisers and Spirit Wear campaigns.
Here are three key components to think about as you plan your school’s spirit wear store each year.
- Focus on the staples. Hoodies have always been the number one selling items for spirit stores. A lot of spirit wear buyers, often well intended volunteers, get drawn to trendy items. While there are a lot of “cool products” that may pique your interest, our advice is think twice before you make that investment. Remember, your spirit store has a wave of new students coming in each year, and their first buy is typically the traditional school hoodies, beanies or scarves. We’ve seen a lot of Spirit Wear stores stocked with trendy items from previous years. Overstock will eat your profits.
- Find a company who can turnaround your spirit wear orders quickly. You never want to miss a selling opportunity at a big school event because your vendor didn’t deliver on time. Don’t let your profits sit on the shelf in the form of too much inventory. The vendor who can turn turnaround your orders fast allows you to keep less inventory and more profit. Make sure your supplier can setup an online store for you to sell your spirit wear 24 hours a day! The single hottest way to sell your spirit wear is online.
- Tell your community why you sell spirit wear. Are you trying to increase school spirit or is this a fund raiser? We’ve worked with schools where the goal is to break even and simply sell spirit wear to promote the school and community and increase the enthusiasm and school spirit. More and more however, we are working with schools who use spirit wear sales to support programs in a variety of ways. These programs come to rely on this support. Surprisingly, we work with spirit wear stores who fail to remind the community why their sales are important and what they support. With social media, reminding community members how their purchases support their school is easy. In addition to promoting items on social, tell them specifically how the money is being used to support programs.
Knit Wit Apparel will help your spirit wear stores keep the most important items in stock and ready to go. Schools rely on our fast turnaround time and advice year after year.
Need assistance? We can help! Drop us an email and we are happy to answer any questions you have.
