See Us In Nashville
Yipes Card – Personalized
Products & Services
Web Design/E-commerce
Consignment Sales
PRIORITY News – Dec/Jan

Booths 1029 & 1031.

Stop by to see what we mean by "the Leaner, Meaner QDP". It may not be (is probably not) what you think! Be a winner! Stop by the booth for details.

Consider a customized “Yipes!” card as a mailing piece that will encourage a response.

Overview

WinUltra Order Tally System. In addition to the full program, we offer a Lite version for non-inventorying distributors and a Holiday Shop module (included in full version) for gift shop distributors who do NOT offer brochure sales. Enhanced in 2004 were the UTally (remote or group entry with disk or emailed results) and UCollect (money collection assistance) modules. WinUltra works with catalog order forms. Pop up lists help to cross check or make judgment calls when the customer writes an invalid item number or price.

WebUltra™ enables inclusion of Internet Sales data in your WinUltra group reports.

WinScan verifies order accuracy by scanning product bar code labels in the packing room. Track orders with backordered product for easy backorder fulfillment later. Get printouts of product and orders scanned to confirm whether a "missing" order was packed.

Added to WinScan during 2004 was the Thermal Label Printer module that allows the scanning operator to print a determined number of large print seller labels for packers to use.

TELEform® and TallyScan™ enable handwritten order form scanning for high volume, higher speed data entry processing.

I-Scan uses a remote scanner to check in product off the truck and/or to do spot-checking or complete inventory in the warehouse.

Web Design / E-Commerce. Take advantage of our experience designing dozens of uniquely personalized web sites. Our sites get hits and results – and we know the fundraising business so you don’t have to educate your designer and deal with the communication hurdle presented by non-fundraising computer geeks.

Tally Service. Whether you use us for your bottleneck overflow or as your total service provider, we can tally your orders and generate personalized reports. And, for those willing to use our scanner-friendly order forms, we can discount our tally services.

Tally/Pack Service. We can be your total service provider; tallying, packing, shipping and invoicing so you can SELL!

What’s New!

Our programs are continually evolving to keep you on the cutting edge.

Security. Set up security levels on Main Menu or Sub Menu Items to prevent employees from seeing or affecting certain data, i.e. product cost.

Internet Data Entry. In addition to importing web sales, you can now manually enter Web Sales; Add, Modify & Delete Internet Sellers.

UTally data can be stored on a thumb drive instead of a floppy. Data can still be emailed.

Reports. Upgrade your image by putting your logo on your tally reports. Print in Color!

New Printout. Invoice Returns from the Invoice Worksheet allows entry of additional product and/or returns. This will update Inventory, and can also be exported to QuickBooks. Additional Product will create a new Invoice while Returns will create a Credit Memo.

QuickBooks interface enhancements. In addition to sending data from WinUltra to QuickBooks for itemized Sales Orders and Purchase Orders, you can also send inventory information from WinUltra TO QuickBooks or import inventory info FROM QuickBooks into WinUltra. Send final quantities from the Kit Sales Billing Worksheet to QuickBooks for an itemized or single line invoice.

Kit Sale Entry. Toggle in/out of Catalog-style entry.

CashBox Cashier. Designed to compete with or replace cash registers for gift shop checkout. Group’s inventory (including bar codes) is transferred to a diskette. Checkout cashier can scan bar codes to have product and price listed on screen, or enter Item Codes manually. Enter amount tendered and see change or balance due. Record personalized seller transactions, including printing itemized receipts. Reordered product can be entered so that end of shop inventory is automatic. See sales results by day or to date and get quick visual of product to reorder or running low. If customer maintains inventory via Cashbox Cashier and returns the disk with returned product, you can import the results to generate final billing and update your inventory.

Consider Cashbox Cashier for your warehouse sale!

We have been telling you for some time now that you need a web site to compete in the fundraising industry. That is truer now than ever before. We are now hosting 46 sites in 20 states. Half of those sites are using e-commerce to increase sales.

Why Choose SP Designs?

1. We Know Fundraising. You won’t spend hours explaining what you do.
2. Clean Designs. Your visitors won’t have to hunt for links or scroll for hours to find the information they need. Your site will have a uniform look and feel, easy navigation and will download quickly.
3. Less than Premium Prices. It shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg to have a web site designed.
4. Seasonal Reminders. We understand the fundraising seasons. While you are selling product to groups in the fall, you are signing groups for spring and vice versa. Your web site should reflect that and we will send you reminders to make sure your site keeps up to date.

We offer several levels of web design to meet your needs:

• Basic. Actually, it’s anything but basic. Promote your company, products and services to potential and current groups.
• E-Commerce. Take the next step and allow customers to order products online. You can choose to sell current or overstocked products.
• WebUltra™. For the ultimate "full service" web site, add our patent-pending WebUltra™ add-on module to your WinUltra 2.0 program to import online sales into your reports.
• Site Maintenance. If you already have a web site, but it needs some spring-cleaning, or you are tired of trying to get a hold of the kid next door who designed it, give us a call. We can do simple site updates, or give your site a fresh look.

Consider possibilities outside the elementary school holiday gift shop program.

Then and Now

I was in the school consignment gift shop business until about ten years ago, stopping for three main reasons. We weren’t doing enough volume to justify a warehousing program and we didn’t like the quality of the “stock” shops. We kept gaining in inventory after the end of the year and got it all back just in time to pay inventory tax on it. And at a 2x mark and 10% rep commission, it wasn’t all that profitable for company or rep.

At the time, brochure sales made more sense. Brochures were $.20 each, post-pay sales encouraged high participation, and giving away prizes that cost $.10 - $1.00 were effective motivators. I could order only the product needed, always got it, and could end the season with nearly zero unwanted inventory.

But now . . .

Product brochures cost $1.00-$1.50 each plus the prize brochure and 3-pt order form which must all be pre-packaged in a brochure bag or large expensive collection envelope. Pre-pay sales (although great for getting payment faster) combined with trinket prizes and increasingly overpriced, useless and junky product, have lowered participation to the point where a big, low producing group can actually put you in the hole on brochure expense alone. Unlike ten years ago, most vendors want up front guestimate orders, and when we all use vendor percentages for ordering we’re all overstocked on the same non-selling junk, so a large end of year inventory is now part of the business. Other more prevalent concepts include our vendors opening gigantic warehouse sales in our neighborhoods and the same merchandise we sell showing up in dollar stores.

Gift Shop markups have increased, and creative software has made it possible to move unwanted fundraising inventory into the gift shop merchandise to sell profitably and to do a better job of manipulating inventory for groups.

Should you Rep or Distribute a Stock Shop or
Warehouse & Build Your Own?

Rep or Distribute a Stock Shop. Rep commissions are usually15-20% while distributors can expect 25-33%, but have to buy supplies and pay freight.

Stock Shops. The biggest advantage is that you don’t have to warehouse or to build the shops. Reps should ensure their supplier can ship re-orders same day and get them to the customer in 1-2 days. Distributors utilizing stock shops usually order extra product to use for re-orders, which groups say is the second most important part of their decision-making process.

The downside to stock shops is that they tend to present a one-size fits all approach. If a shop is designed for a school of 400, what do you send a small group of 100 or a group of 500? You’re giving way too much product to the small group and either not enough, or double shipping too much for the 500 member group. Another significant disadvantage is the same as for stock brochures; that you have no choice in taking the vendor’s good, bad and last year’s leftovers.

Consider some advantages of selecting your own product and building your own shops:

• Better product selection. Pick the best and forget the rest – and reduce quality and selection complaints.
• Customize to better meet the need. Put more lower priced items in the shop going to the inner city or more high end items for the private school in the suburbs and keep everybody happy.
• Base what you send on what they sold last year to reduce reorder amounts

In the December/January issue of PRIORITY News, I will offer suggestions of product mixes and pricing for your custom shop. Also read about a gift shop experience from the child’s and the shop volunteer’s perspective. I will spend the rest of this RUNTIME article describing how QDP programs can help you manage the product and make custom shops easier.

WinUltra Kit Sales Software and Custom Consignment Gift Shops

Following is how a distributor would use WinUltra Kit Sales to build and provide paperwork for a series of specialized product lists in addition to a basic kit. The Basic List includes a variety of merchandise ranging from $.20 up to $4.90 and a total of approx $2100 in merchandise. Additional specialty lists will add about $300 each. Example specialty lists (for this discussion) will include Expensive (items over $5), Collegiate, Kids (extra toys), and Holiday/Religious.

Upon receipt of a Program Agreement, enter the Group and Sponsor Information into the Customer Data File, including sign, start, end, delivery and pick-up (or ship back) dates, group size and projected sales amount. Use the Notes section to put in info specific to this group, i.e. "no Santa items" or "extra Collegiate".

When time to build a group’s kit, go to Kit Sales and Entry to select the lists (brochures) for this group. The default would be to select each of the lists to have a kit with an approximate $3300 retail. Exceptions would include a very small group (basic list only), a group that wants nothing over $5 or nothing religious.

During setup, you can change the quantity of each of the lists. For a larger group that needs $5000 in merchandise, changing the quantity of the Basic list from one to two would add $2100. By adding, removing or changing the quantities of each list/kit, you have wide flexibility in making the size meet the need.

Viewing the "Initial Qty" list, the distributor can raise or lower the default amounts of each product in the kit. If the sticky frogs are out of stock, changing the quantity of that item to zero means that item will not list on any printout. That’s a HUGE advantage over the canned lists, which show products with zero quantities.

When ready, there are several printout options.

Billing Worksheet. Initially, this report can include an itemized initial quantity with blank columns for the shop chairperson to enter reorders, returns, and calculate amounts sold and due. Enter reorders and then, upon receipt of the group’s returns, you can send a full computer-calculated summary of initial order, reorders, returns, sold and due. This is especially helpful if the group’s calculations don’t match yours – because most people won’t argue with a computer report. If the amount of paper is not a consideration, an updated Billing Worksheet could be printed and enclosed with each reorder shipment.

Product Price List. This report can be sorted by price or alphabetically. In addition to showing the amount charged to the group, additional columns are available to show markup amounts. For example, you can show a 10% and 20% markup amount.

Product Table Labels. Product labels on the tables help both shoppers and volunteers. Print unpriced or use any of the prices from the Product Price List. Labels are much less expensive than the price card tents some use.

Box Pack Lists. Whether you are separating products by price or category, the pack lists will print a page per box, making it easy for groups to check in product.

Inventory is automatically updated when worksheets are printed, group totals are displayed, or manually anytime you want. As with the fundraising inventory, you have access to product on order, on hand, committed, available, sold, and to order quantities.

Cash Box Cashier Software can set you apart from your competition. (See What’s New).

And now, with our latest WinUltra enhancement, the final quantities from a group’s Billing Worksheet can be exported to make an itemized QuickBooks Invoice.

More reasons to consider Gift Shops.

Use leftover fundraising product. Gifts from fundraising brochures can work in gift shops. The customer has not ordered a specific pictured item in advance, so if you have slightly different items in different kits, you’re less likely to hear "substitution" complaints.

Increase business. Use the combination of fundraising plus gift shop to offer groups an advantage that competitors offering only one or the other cannot easily match or justify.

Because there is less on-hand and on-site service needed, gift shops are easier to sell by phone, direct mail, or via Internet marketing. You can also work with longer distance away groups.

Increase rep income potential and keep the good ones working.

Are Gift Shops just for Christmas?

Consider these uses of leftover products.

Additional holidays, like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day or Easter.

Treasure Boxes. Use the lower end items for the principal to use as good student rewards. Higher end items can be used for teacher, classroom or volunteer rewards.

Treasure Box items could also be used as School Carnival Prizes.

Stuffed Stockings. There are sources of stockings, and it matters little what goes in them. Use them as early sign bonuses or volume rewards, and groups can use them as drawing or raffle prizes to increase participation in the school’s fundraisers and gift shop programs.

By offering Clearance or Closeout Merchandise at your Open House events, you can attract groups who run their own gift shops but will consider your closeouts as a source, providing an opportunity to present the quality of your products and the advantages of your program to people who might not have otherwise considered it.

Half Price Cash & Carry Kits. At least one major gift shop supplier offers "year behind" kits at half price to groups willing to take them as close-outs without the promise of re-orders. Other groups operate under two names, where one name offers "current" product while the other offers "year behind" product at discounted prices.

• suggestions of product mixes, pricing and organizing for your gift shop.
• the gift shop experience from the child’s and the shop volunteer’s perspective
• edited generic letter from a distributor to a supplier organizing vendor warehouse sales in the neighborhood.
• Did you know the Darlington Sale goes on – with final prices at $.49? I’ll share some of your responses to my recent eNotes about vendor warehouse sales.

Subscription is only $49 per year.

Last Modified:& 12/28/2004