College Care Package pricing

So there are many companies that do this. Common theme is studying for Midterms and finals. Holidays are also. Costco for bulk, dollar stores, Aldis to get started and keep pricing down. Forget about your time. Your starting a new business.

Not sure what your goal is but yes you should ask about access. Usually it would be to the area they accept packages.

Winter themes I see a cup (school cup), with hot coco mix, marshmallows, cookies and teas. Lots of fun themes but I will tell you, midterms and finals is key.

I wouldn’t even focus on making a large profit. First get some out there as a test market. Question I have. How will you notify parents /students of this endeavor and how will you take orders?

@CateCAParent When the parent orders they give their kids contact info and I text them to arrange a delivery time to meet.

My sorority alum group did this (pre-covid) for the 4 houses in our city. The order forms were sent to their parents and the gift bags were about $25. Sometimes we ordered tote bags with our letters on them or just got a bunch of $1 totes at Michaels or from Oriental trading. We did it as a fund raiser.

Honestly, it was a nightmare. Parents ordered late and then didn’t understand why their daughter couldn’t be added. The girls wouldn’t pick them up (we put the names on them and delivered to the houses, but not everyone lived in the house). Parents wanted refunds. They paid by Paypal, so if we refunded we lost $1.15 on the transaction. IMO, the stuff was junk. The first few years we just bought a bunch of treats from Costco and some ‘study stuff’ like highlighters and post-its.

But we did make money, usually about $1000 per year on the sale of about 100-140 bags. However, all the labor was done by volunteers so if we made $5/bag it cost us nothing in labor for shopping for stuff or stuffing the bags, gas (for deliveries), or even the snacks and drinks for the ‘stuffing’ party. I don’t think we’d have made anything if we were paying for labor. We also had some donations of things to put in the bags (Starbucks gift cards, sometimes snacks).

Then one of our members ‘took over’ and ordered a bunch of personalize stuff like stress balls and plastic cups and sunglasses. We made about $300 and it was much more work.

We haven’t done it for 2 years because of covid. Not sure we’ll do it again. Or, we may up the quality and charge more, get a really nice quality tote bag (we made a lot off selling those to alums), putting higher quality stuff in it, but charging $50 or more. We only did it once a year, in April.

For my own kids, I sent Popcorn Factory treats for holidays, the prepaid boxes from USPS, or big boxes of stuff from Amazon Prime/groceries. One daughter actually asked me to stop sending so much stuff!

Wow—that sounds like a lot of work to net $1000, with free labor thrown in plus some donations. Not sure it’s that profitable @twoinanddone.

It was a fundraiser but also an activity for the alum group and a goodwill thing for the collegiates. But just pointing out to the OP that there isn’t a lot of profit in this type of thing. Making $1000 was worth it, making $300 wasn’t. The value of the bags was about $15 and we charged $25, and their parents bought them because it supported our national philanthropy, but I don’t think they would have paid otherwise.

Also, as I said, parents are a pain to deal with! “why didn’t my daughter whose name is Emma S, not Emma G or Emma S (#2) get her bag? Oh, no, she doesn’t live in the house and left school a week early because her grandmother was leaving for Europe and she needed to come home and see her but you should have delivered it to her dorm room a week earlier. We want a refund.”

Or, “We didn’t order a study bag but my daughter was hurt that all her suite mates did and now we want one. Would that be okay?” (NO it would not be okay)

This is okay for fundraising but not for a business you expect to make a profit on.

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Yup, I can see the headaches one can easily have and am glad you considered the net $1000 profit w/ free labor worth it. I agree it’s not an easy way to make money, imho.

I would not give out my kids’ cell numbers without their permission. Plus, they have their phones set to silence unfamiliar callers
so the call would go directly to voice mail.

So
no surprises would be able to happen.

My D goes to a rural SLAC. We sent truffles on Valentines Day last year from a local shop she knew and had been to. I gave them her number and got specific details about when they called to arrange for delivery. I told D to expect a call on X day between y and z o’clock from a business in town and make sure her phone was on and would accept calls. For once, she actually listened, answered the phone and was rewarded with a surprise.

I’m not sure it would work for an unknown business or one where the day/time of the call wasn’t prearranged. This place knew the dynamics of the students, had been doing it for years, and got the kinks out. Their delivery guy is recognized and accommodated by the mailroom. Plus, they are the only game in town.

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If it’s a small lac or collage why can’t you just leave it where they would pick up packages and call the student that they have something delivered or the school notifies them?

I’ve had kids at 4 different colleges, having treats delivered involves giving out their phone number (and I tell my kids to expect a call). All 4 have insomnia cookies nearby, parents are always sending kids cookies.

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A parent organized this at my son’s school last year. We each paid $25 AND we sent an item to share in each of the 25 boxes. the $25 was for the shipping and packaging and maybe she added a few staples. It was sent by mail. I probably spent about $20 on the items I sent. Some used Amazon to ship those items to her so shipping would have been free.

I think parents form the same town used to get together and do this to send to all their kids. but this parent was trying to do it in a covid friendly way. Most were students at the same school because she communicated on the parent page, but a few added siblings at another school.