How to Run a School Supply Store like an “A+” Student

Shopping for school supplies at the inauguration of each academic year is a thrill, and there’s something about unsharpened pencils and blank loose-leaf that symbolizes the opportunity to wipe the old slate chalkboard clean and start anew. But sometimes tracking down all the items on that supply list is a bit like navigating through a corn maze: a long process of tracing up and down through the same aisles over and over again. School stores can act as the navigational tool to get you, your students, or your children out of the office stores and into the classroom with all the right materials for success.

Whether you’re a teacher looking to implement a school store to provide access to necessary academic resources, a principal prepped to prepare students for class, or a PTA volunteer seeking a way to fundraise, we have a few tips to help your process along quickly and smoothly.

Tips on Operating Your School Store:

• The Supplies: When you sit down to order your materials, think about the number of students in the school and confer with teachers to receive information about the supplies they deem essential for the grade level they teach. A great way to guarantee you’re ordering materials that appeal to the appropriate age range is to put together a student committee and have them circle the items they like!

• Traffic: With their tightly packed schedules, students have a limited amount of time during their days to pay a visit to the school store and stock up on necessary supplies. That’s why it’s so important to select a location that receives a lot of traffic: the front lobby, the entrance to the cafeteria, a busy hallway. If you can’t secure prime real estate, be sure to advertise the store well so students know where to head when their pencils have run out of lead and their composition books have been filled to the brim.

• Price Points: In order to have a profitable business, it’s important to price supplies at a level that is at once affordable to students and allows you to bank money for your school or cause. Ordering from a wholesale supplier in bulk is a great way to guarantee you’ll be able to purchase materials economically and yield earnings at resale.

Here’s a brief history lesson: at Raymond Geddes, we’ve been in business since 1924, the year of the original Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the time when the first radio broadcast was made from the White House by President Calvin Coolidge. That means we have decades of experience in providing schools with the supplies their students need to bring home excellent marks on their report cards – at affordable prices. With both classic educational must-haves and hip best-sellers, we can guarantee that we have all the right tools for school. Visit our website to browse our virtual catalogue of selections!

Study the benefits of having a school supply store: come back next week to read about how a school store can help students learn outside of the classroom.