Selling Booster Club Merchandise Online

Introduction

Selling booster club merchandise online has an enormous variety of benefits. Not only is having an online merchandise store a great way to consistently fundraise for your booster club’s focus extra-curricular activity,  but selling products like shirts, sweatpants, and hats alike allow you to publically brand your booster club and your associated school. While online sales can be a potential bonanza,  the logistics of running an online store can be a tricky process. Below, we here at Booostr.co have cultivated an assortment of tips that will help you to successfully create and maintain booster club online retail sales.

Booster Clubs and Ecommerce

What, exactly, is ecommerce? Ecommerce can be defined as any kind of transaction that takes place online, whether those transactions are between two businesses or businesses and consumers. Ecommerce has become an extremely popular way of conducting business due to the large number of  people continuously online.. Ecommerce allows organizations, like your booster club, to eliminate traditional boundaries that restricted transactions, such as time and distance. Additionally, ecommerce is and extremely cost effective and efficient way to sell booster club merchandise online.

Setting Up A Store For Selling Booster Club Merchandise Online

The first step to selling booster club merchandise online is to create a store solely for the purpose of selling products branded by your booster club. There are a number of platforms your booster can use to create your online store, such as Shopify or Volusion.

Shopify is probably the most well known and easiest to get up and running. It is an online platform that allows anyone to create an online store that has the ability to advertise via Pinterest, Facebook, Amazon, and other very popular marketplace sites. While building the site is not free, the platform itself is a reliable option to create an online store to sell your booster club merchandise. However, keep in mind that Shopify requires you to establish a month to month paid plan or annual contract which means you do need to plan on paying some cost up front. That being said, one of the key advantages of Shopify is the ability to integrate with apps like Merchify which produces and ships on demand products of your booster club submitted designs. This enables your booster club to sell products without having to carry inventory or keep track of paper trails or orders associated with the product.

Another platform option for booster club online sales is Volusion.  While Volusion has been around for a long time, it does not have the brand recognition Shopify does.  One of the advantages to Volusion over Shopify is that it is a much more robust platform and gives you more control of your shopping site.  If you are planning on launching a larger store for your booster club, Volusion might be a the option for you!

How To Generate Booster Club Revenue Online

While selling booster club branded merchandise online is its own kind of advertising for your club, it’s necessary that you advertise for the merchandise itself. Merchandise allows your booster club to capitalize on the purpose and mission of the club. Due to the fact that the money spent on clothing and items with your booster club’s brand is going towards an activityor department rather than an individual, supporters are more willing to spend money to help your cause. The key is making sure to let your consumers know about the products in the first place.

One way to spread the word is to post samples of the products your booster club is going to be selling on social media in order to generate booster club revenue online. If you already have a dedicated following through social media, the simple act of letting them know the store exists will generate online store revenue. Additionally, selling products at actual events will give consumers a physical sample of what your booster club has to offer online. Be sure to steer those who buy products at fundraisers towards your online store as another purchase option to help generate booster club revenue online.

Managing Your Booster Club Ecommerce Store

When it comes to booster clubs and ecommerce, it’s important to develop a consistent and convenient system for keeping track of online funds and transactions. Part of creating a booster club is setting up a private bank account that acts solely as the organization’s account. Utilizing the booster club’s bank account,  you can take advantage of online banking which allows the money you receive from your ecommerce sales to go directly into the booster club’s account.

If you are wary of setting up credit card processing  another option to manage the  transaction process is PayPal, a popular “payment solution” application. PayPal allows your booster club to view monthly statements, track instant transactions, and view downloadable payment logs, meaning that there is total transparency during the transaction process between the booster club and consumer. Best of all you can connect Paypal to your bank account to do direct transfers whenever you have money there. Click here to learn more about the benefits PayPal has in place for booster clubs and other nonprofits.

To sell booster club merchandise online requires a large amount of organization on your booster clubs part. However, the benefits of selling merchandise are enormous, giving your booster club the opportunity to have a consistent channel of fundraising throughout all of its active years.