Online store fulfillment

[Sbrem]

Hello all, we have been doing stores for our school customers, where it runs for 2 - 3 weeks, then we fulfill and deliver. Then, we have one store that sells just one design on a half dozen assorted shirts, and we fulfill immediately and mail USPS. Now one of our customers, a local community center, is asking about the possibility of an online store, but I feel the issue is going to be too many items, like water bottles, bags, and things that would require stocking inventory, as opposed to knocking out 1 color left front prints. Is anyone doing anything similar, and could maybe give a few pointers? We're using Order My Gear for our stores, but are not opposed to a different platform. Thanks in advance...

Steve

[mimosatexas]

We run a ton of stores, mainly bigcommerce. Inventory management is a challenge, but if you have the space it can be great money...

[whitewater]

For us, the customer would have to pay upfront for the inventory.

We do that for an arena football team here. Everything is paid up front and then we just do the fulfillment.

They have foam fingers, water bottles, footballs, etc....

We use order my gear for most, but with this particular team we set up a wix account and store that they pay for and the payments are sent to them and we bill them for the fulfillment of each order. Just a different way of doing it. This way they are recouping their costs of the inventory right away.. or you can take the payments and send them a check on a agreed timeline?



But I'm not holding on to inventory that we paid for for a customer..

[Sbrem]

I explained what I thought the costs could be, and my concerns about holding inventory, but she came back with 5 simple garments that would get either of their 2 logos, 1 color left fronts yet, so fulfillment would be pretty easy through OMG, right through printing out the label and handing off to USPS. But I do appreciate the idea of the inventory being paid for upfront and involving the customer more in the store. I'll have to study more on that I guess.

Steve