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  • 1.  Online School Store and Parent Ordering Solutions

    Posted 11-12-2021 09:36 AM
    We are in the early stages of two projects for which I seek advice and the expertise of the group.

    This first of which is to find a new solution for our school's consolidated ordering process, which we called our One Stop Shopping (OSS). With our OSS parents were given the opportunity to a wide variety of items, including:

    • Tickets to special athletics events
    • Merchandise for special events
    • Social event (homecoming, prom, MS grade level parties, etc.) tickets
    • US Newspaper subscriptions
    • Senior and specialty yearbook ads
    • extra PE uniforms
    • spirit yard signs
    • Items for other class fundraisers, such as brownie and cookie mixes, poinsettias, etc.
    These items were sold on both a per student and a per household basis. In our previous solution, families were only shown items which they were eligible to purchase, so that a middle school family did not have the opportunity to purchase Upper School dance tickets, etc. Parents were able to look up their receipts online which was helpful.

    Due to the pandemic, our parents have also pursued other options and have enjoyed the ability to have rolling sales, as opposed to our OSS order deadline of around Labor Day. This has allowed them to capture more sales leading up to the events, which presents a different set of problems for our business office, since they are now needing to process orders monthly rather than in one batch.

    Our second project is that our new book store manager is wanting to explore online bookstore options for spirit wear, etc. Our previous book store manager had run one, but discontinued it 7-8 years ago. We did not try to do this last year when we are closed. We are also in the early stages of a web site redesign, so this is a great opportunity for us to explore to launch for the 2022-23 academic year along with our new web site.

    I am interested in how other schools are managing these two online sales options for your schools. What are you using that works well? What are you using that doesn't work so well?

    Thank you in advance for your replies,

    Vinnie
    #General
    #ITSystemsandSupport

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    Vinnie Vrotny
    Director of Technology
    The Kinkaid School
    vinnie.vrotny@kinkaid.org
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  • 2.  RE: Online School Store and Parent Ordering Solutions

    Posted 12-01-2021 11:01 AM
    Yes, would love to hear more about online bookstore, too.

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    Donna Muller
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