Questions About ONLINE STORES

Pop Up Stores Work in Many Situations.

Pop Up Stores are Ideal For Organizations with a Known and Clearly Defined Membership with whom they are able to easily communicate, whether that be through:

• Membership / Team E-mail List
• Facebook Page or other Social Media
• Your Own Website

If You want to Create "Gear" (with or without a Profit or Fundraising component) for your:

• School / Student Group
• Club / Association
• Sports Team / Group
• Fitness Group / Facility / Yoga Centre
• Dance Group
• Hospital or Health Care Workplace
• Loyal Business Patrons (eg, Bars / Breweries)

If you Want to Raise Funds for Your:

• Non-Profit / Charity
• Churches / Religious Groups

Then Our Online Stores are Perfect for You!

Situations Where Our Online Store Is Probably Not Right For You:

• You don't have a defined target market or a way of communicating directly with potential buyers
• Your potential sales are likely to be less than 24 items in total
• You need the garments to ship immediately when an order is placed
• You are starting your own personal Clothing Line

Good question (and one we get a LOT!)

Pop-Up Stores (Screenprinting)

With a Pop-Up Store, garments are printed en masse, using screenprinting (done right here, in our shop) to decorate all of garments once the store closes.  This means that we do not print one garment at a time, or on the same day as orders come in.

This tried-and-true method of decorating is still the Gold Standard for Garment Printing.  Even better news, this allows us to keep the price of your garments down, so that they remain affordable to your members, and to give you some wiggle room for Fundraising or Profit, if you wish.

Pop-Up Stores such as ours are almost always going to result in the lowest price to your Members and (if desired), the best Fundrasing results for your Organization.

Print-On-Demand ("Always Open") Stores (Which are NOT what we offer!)

A Print-On-Demand Store is one where orders are processed (printed) and shipped almost immediately when an order comes in.  That's the good news.

The method of decorating these garments (which allows "instant printing") is typically "Direct-To-Garment" (DTG) where ink is sprayed onto a garment, much like ink is sprayed onto paper with an inkjet printer. 

Typically this method is quite expensive, and can mean that the Sell Price you are required to charge your Members is quite high.  Whether or not you are adding a Fundraising or Profit component to this, this method can put the price out of reach for most of your Members.

P.O.D. is Better Suited For:

• Small Orders (less than 24 units)
• Entry Level ("Testing the Market") with your own Clothing Line or Design
• Groups for whom keeping the Sell Price low is not important
• Groups who need their items to ship out immediately when an order is placed

No, they do not.

Our stores are set up and hosted by us, and do not integrate with other online selling platforms such as Shopify.

The store we set up for you effectively *is* your Shopify store!  (And saves you the hassle of setting up your own store!)

Once you've decided that an Online Store is appropriate for your Organization, the steps are pretty straightforward:

1)  Choose The Products You Want to Carry on Your Store.

You can either "shop" on your own, finding the garments that you wish to offer your Members, or we can make recommendations for you based on popularity, pricing, or whatever criteria are most important to you and your Membership.

2)  Let Us Know How You Would Like The Garments Decorated.

While most of our Stores choose to sell Printed Garments, we do also offer Embroidery as an option.  (Printing is generally less expensive than Embroidery).

Send along your artwork (or even just your artwork ideas) and our Artists will do their magic (there's no charge for this!)

3)  Let Us Know What Minimum Quantity of Sales you Expect For Your Store.

Based on that information, we provide you with what the Price will be for each item you want to sell on your store.

4)  Let us know if (and how much) you would like to add to that price for Fundraising or Profit.

5)  We Start Setting Up Your Store!

We'll mockup your Artwork onto the garments you've chosen, and will build a store for you, displaying your designs on all of the garments you've chosen.

6)  We Give You Access to a Sneak Peek of How The Store Looks For Your Approval.

7)  We Open Your Store!

8)  We Provide You with Tools including Flyers, to Promote Your Store To Members.

9)  We collect orders and payment from your Members.

10)  The Store stays open until your pre-determined Closing Date.

11)  When the Store Closes, we Print / Produce your Garments and Ship them out!

12)  If there was a Fundraising component to your pricing, we send you a cheque for the amount raised!

Almost anything you choose!

We have a wide variety of garments on our website, so there's almost no limit to which ones you can choose to sell to your Members.

We do recommend that you not overwhelm your Supporters with TOO much choice, but many of our Stores offer a variety of garments for sale (for example - Men's, Women's,  and Children's T-shirts, Sweatshirts, and Hoodies.)

In order to keep the costs down for Members, the more garments that can share the same design, the better the price.  

However, if you want to offer mulitiple designs, that's okay, too!

Do Note, though, that Initial Pricing we provide to you will be based on a standard number of garment colours being offered (up to 5) as well as a maximum number of garment styles being offered (usually 8). 

Individualization / Personalization is also an option we can add to your Store, allowing Members to customize their garment with their Name, Jersey Number, Sport, Position, Faculty, or Whatever, for an additional charge.

We like to involve the Group Organizers as much as possible in the Store Setup, includng messaging and branding, so the Store will look just as you like when it goes "live"!

Even better, we provide an Administrative Portal for the Group Organizers that allows them to get a sneak peek of how the Store will look when it launches, so they can request any tweaks that they wish to see.

Not very long!

Once you have let us know WHAT garments you'd like up on the store, and provided us with HOW you'd like them decorated (artwork approvals), we can typically have your store set up in under a week.

Prices are determined based on the Garment Styles chosen, the Decoration onto those Garments, and the Quantity of Garments that the Organization has determined are realistically going to be ordered.  Initial Pricing that we provide is based on a smaximum number of garment colours being offered (usually 5) as well as a maximum number of garment styles being offered (usually 8). 

These prices are calculated for your approval before a Store is setup and opened.

As with most online stores, pricing is shown before taxes, and delivery, if applicable.

If you wish to add a Fundraising or Profit component to the calculated price, simply let us know the amount you would like to add.  The amount of this component can be different for different products, if you wish.

The fundraising portion can be made visible to your Members if you wish. 

Also, the "Total Raised" can be shown to your members, on the Store Homepage, if you wish.

All payment is collected by us, through the Store, usually via MasterCard or Visa.

The entire order is paid for, including applicable taxes, saving Group Organizers the hassle of collecting payment from individuals.

If you've added a Fundraising or Profit component to your Store, we remit that portion to your Group separately, when the store has closed.

We generally recommend that the Store stay open for about 1 - 2 weeks.  

Because these are "Pop-Up" Stores, production of the entire order only begins once the store has closed.

We typically find that most orders happen in the very early days of store opening, with another flurry of activity closer to the store closing date.  

If the store is open longer, remember that the people who place their orders on Day One might be in for a long wait from the date they ordered!

Remember that the store can always be reopened at another time if the Group Organizer(s) feel that the demand is there.

In theory, you could open your store up again, say, a few days after your first one closes, if the demand was there!  While we bring in the garments for the first store, and then print and ship them, you can be collecting orders in your secnd store (and so on).

We will provide you with everything you need to direct your Members and Supporters to the Store!

The Store itself is hosted through our website, here:  Online Stores  We will help you direct your members to this page, where they will find your store.

The Group Organizer (or Organizers) will be given special access to an Organizer Portal that helps to spread the word about your Store, and where to find it.  You can use this Portal to communicate with your members if you wish.  We do find, however, that most Groups already have a Membership Mailing List that they use to reach all of their Members and Supporters, and they often prefer to use that list.

We provide you with a Flyer that you can share with your members, and which shows the products you have on your store, along with instructions and a clickable link to access the Store.

The Portal also allows the Group Organizer to share the Store via Twitter and Facebook, if you wish.

About 2 - 3 Weeks After the Store Closing Date.

Once the Store closes, we assemble all of the garments that have been ordered, and then print or embroider them.  This usually takes about two weeks or so.  After that, the garments are shipped, and are subject to standard Canadian Shipping timeframes.

It is important for your members to know that GARMENTS ARE NOT PRINTED AND SHIPPED ON THE SAME DAY AS THEY PLACE THEIR ORDERS! 

This means that the keeners who place their order on the first day that the store opens might have a fairly long wait from the time they place their order, to store closing, to delivery (which is why we suggest not keeping the store open for too long!)

We can do it either way.

By far, the most cost-effective way of getting the final product into the hands of your members is always going to be to have the Group Organizer receive the entire order, shipped free by us  (and nicely organized by us!) and to then arrange pickup by or distribution to Members, knowing that everything is already fully paid for.  By removing any shipping component, you save your members the most money.

This obviously works well for situations where there is a central location from which the Group Organizer can distribute the items.  Perfect examples of this are when all of the anticipated purchasing Members are local to the Group Organizer, such as:

• Sport Teams / Groups
• Dance Groups
• Schools / University Groups / Grad Groups
• Businesses / Staff Uniforms
• Fitness Facilities / Gyms / Yoga Stuidos
• Healthcare Facilities
• Churches
• Camps

However, if your Members are in multiple locations / cities, we do offer a shipping option, and will ship to individual purchasers.  The biggest drawback to this is that shipping can add fairly significantly to the final checkout price for your Members.