t-shirt sale alpha lambda

chapter
University of Alabama

fundraiser
Dental school t-shirt sale

contact
nate lawson | foundationrep@ao.org

what did you sell and how much did you sell it for?
We sold UAB Dental School T-shirts. Shirts were priced: $7 for AO members, $10 for students and $15 for alumni.

where did you get your product from and where did you research it?
The product was bought from a local silk screen printing press. We did research into 1) the best t-shirt brand, 2) the cheapest printing press, 3) the best sizes to order, and 4) a good color.

• We decided to get the Gildian Ultra shirts based on quality and price.
• We searched google ("screen printing 'your city'") and called 5 tshirt printing places to find the cheapest price for silk screened printing (one color ink - two sides of the shirt).
• We took some orders beforehand to determine what sizes to get. We ended up ordering 29S, 70M, 85L, 50XL, and 4XXL. We should have ordered more smalls.
• We decided to go with a charcoal. Neutral colors tend to sell well (grey, navy, maroon, white, black).

We decided to keep the shirt design simple. The school's logo on the front and a picture of the school on the back. We contacted the school to get their permission to use the dental school logo. They sent us a high resolution .jpg which we sent to the screen printers. We checked the price of shirts at the bookstore to undercut their price.

how did you advertise your product/event and how did you sell it?
We were able to make a photo of what our shirt would look like using the design lab of custom ink printing online at this link: http://www.customink.com/. After we put our design on the shirt and chose the color we wanted, we emailed the school listserve a picture of the shirt and asked them to email us back with orders. We also had representatives from each class go around with order forms. After taking orders for a week, we ordered the shirts from the screen printers.

We also sold the shirts at our school's alumni weekend for $15. The alumni were not particularly interested in buying t-shirts - they prefered jackets and polos. Sweatshirts make an excellent fundraiser because they are not that much more to have made, but you can charge alot for them.

how did the fundraiser go and how much did you make?
One of the challenges of the fundraiser was that we had to front about $1500 to have all of the shirts made. This came out of my bank account. We made back all the money and profited around $500. We also had left over shirts. The shirts cost us about $6.5 to make (including the shirts, the printing on two sides, and tax), so we profited $3.5/shirt. It is possible to buy shirts for a lower price.

Suggestions for other chapters

• Stick with a simple design. You can sell more shirts if they don't say AO.
• Here are the approx proportions as a guide for sizes: small (20%), medium (30%), large (30%), x-large (20%) and a few XXL.
• Selling shirts a month before the holidays is profitable
• Sweatshirts and fleeces are a big seller (particularly around the holidays)
• Buy all your shirts at one time because you get a better deal the more shirts you buy.
• Don't spend any more than 6 or 7 dollars on your shirts.
• Printing in one color ink saves a bunch of money
• If your school has intramural teams, you can makes shirts with numbers on the back and sell them as jerseys.