Repeat orders

Repeat orders for schools that have chosen our online model have three purposes:

  1. Allows families that missed out on the first order to purchase e.g. their child was sick or they were on holiday.
  2. Allows families to order extra products e.g. they love the first items they received and decided they would make great gifts for people they had not initially thought of.
  3. Allows families to also order Smencils products (NZ only)

The two main benefits of offering this are:

  1. Families will often track down and ask the organiser to help with a second purchase for reasons 1 & 2 above, and with a large school community, this can result in dozens of messages and interruptions to the organiser’s already busy life.
  2. It’s all online, so really there is nothing to do, and the ‘store’ may as well be open to accept orders and help raise more funds. Also, the art is already done and online – so it’s super easy.

The best way to run a repeat order:

  • We create a new order to open as soon as the first order closes. For example, if the first order closes at 9:00 am on Wednesday, then the repeat order opens at 9:00 am on that Wednesday. It is amazing how often a parent will call at 2 minutes after the close time to see if they can slip their order in… and this keeps happening throughout the day. So if the second-order closes the moment the other opens, there is no downtime.
  • We can set these two orders up weeks in advance, so there is no need for rushed decisions at 9:00 am on the Wednesday.
  • While we are suggesting we open the second-order immediately, we are not suggesting you tell the school about it just yet.
    • Those that miss out on the first order and just try their luck after the deadline will just think themselves lucky. This is one less person who is going to hassle you to let them purchase.
    • We suggest this repeat order is open for perhaps 4 weeks so that it remains open after the first order has been handed out. This means that people that love the first items they purchased can reorder.
    • When the first order is handed out to the school, we now suggest you let the community officially know that the website is now open until XX day specifically for any late orders, and the previous codes can be used to purchase.
  • While the idea of this is just to pick up a few stragglers, do not discount how effective it can be. Some schools can get over 30% of their first order’s volume in a repeat order which can result in significant extra funds raised. So if you want to promote this properly with parent order forms please talk to us about this, we’ll be happy to help.