The Art of Selling: How to Market Shirts in a JPIAN Way

Don't be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing.

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Entrepreneurial Days or as we commonly known as College Days is fast approaching. And as a recognized student body organization in our university, we are looking for ways to raise funds for the future activities and projects of the organization.

The Junior Philippine Institute of Accountants (JPIA), is a well-known student organization in the Philippines. It is the organization for all young Accountants. Every year, JPIA has many activities so each organization should find ways to raise fund.

With the upcoming College Days, we are planning to earn money for the next school year to finance the expenses during our Intercampus Quizbowls, Accountancy Week, RMYC and NMYC.

One of the fund raising event of JPIA is through selling College Days Shirt.

This is how we do it...

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SHIRT DESIGN CONTEST

It is important that we should know what the market wanted. Since we already decided to sell shirts, the problem is what to put in the shirt? What is the design?

So we conducted a shirt design contest for all students in the universities. They are free to join and submit their entries . The guidelines are written above, in the picture.

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ONLINE VOTING & SELECTION

After we set the deadline of the submission, we started the online voting for the best design. This way, the students who are our market will get the right to choose which design they prefer. This is also a strategy to further increase the sales since they are the one who chose the design.

Some of the designs we received are...

At the end of the online voting, we had the winner from the IT College Department with his design...

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BIDDING

It is a policy in the university that if we are planning to sell shirts or other products inside the school, we need to do Bidding. So we invited at least three shirt printing companies.

Through this, we could choose who will give us the advantages and disadvantages. And by knowing all of that, we could weigh the costs and benefits. Take note that we should choose the option which we could receive greater benefits than the cost we could give away.

Of course, with that in mind, we chose the company we thought that both sides (company and the organization) could benefit. They would sell the shirts at a lower cost and to further motivate everyone, officers (who are usually who exerts effort to sell the shirts) are given free shirts which will be used for every activities that the JPIA may have.

Other than that, the organization should not just think about the incentives it might get. First of all, it should think about the customers' satisfaction. The organization should make the customers that they are taken care and are valuable in the organization.

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PROMOTION MATERIALS

The company we choose to supply us the shirts offered and gave us two standees that could help us in increasing the sales. It indeed help since it is big and students who were able to see the standees got curious and like the design so they ended up buying our shirt. (Note:The guy in the standee is masculine, too! It looks good.)

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ONLINE MARKETING

We used social media to further inform the students about us selling the shirt. With the help of our own little connection and friends, people even outside the universities are getting interested to buy one or more!

We always share the shirt design and always update the page to post progress about the fund raising activity.

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COMPETITION

We have this contest within the organization, for the officers, that anyone who could sell the greatest number will be given a recognition. Every time students come in the office to purchase a shirt, the officers would hurry and gather around the students to grab their attention, so that they would buy to the officers. And guys, it's funny to see the amusement in their eyes everytime they ask us if we have commission in every shirt we sell. But! We don't have. We DON'T have! It is just that we are so competitive and it is fun to receive the prize after the hardwork. And what's more amusing is knowing that at the end, the reward for the officer who got the highest sale is just a ROUND OF APPLAUSE.

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BE FIRST TO USE THE PRODUCT

As the people who sells the product, we should be the first ones to use the product or wear the shirt. So you see above is our two officers who wore the shirt during our pictorial.

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OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS

• COST

We like to see the customers buy the quality product at a lower cost. The selling price is enough for the organization to earn a profit and enough for the customers to purchase it. We used the idea of "selling products at a lower cost for a high sales or demand".

• DELIVERY

The company after we remitted the list of the first batch of order obliged to deliver the shirt after a week. What's good is they delivered the shirt before the seventh day and with that, the first customers were able to use and wear the shirts immediately.

• IMPORTANCE OF PARTICIPATION

Of course, some customers like to buy a product knowing that it's for a greater cause. We always make them feel valuable and that their participation to this event is very important for the success of the organization. That through buying the shirt, they have contributed big in the organization.

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Online Source:

• https://jpia.wordpress.com/about/
• https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=bidding&dcr=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK9bjs_4jZAhVHWLwKHd6aBY0Q_AUICigB&biw=1280&bih=918#imgrc=LDVpxcKGqy4tWM:
• https://www.google.com.ph/search?dcr=0&biw=1280&bih=869&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=sUl1WtjIH9Hq8AXftp-4Bw&q=votation+online&oq=votation+online&gs_l=psy-ab.3...9036.10224.0.10432.7.7.0.0.0.0.300.300.3-1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..6.0.0....0.Rmw4Jjn-e_E#imgrc=GUypteUZitreOM:
• https://www.google.com.ph/search?dcr=0&biw=1280&bih=869&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=v0l1Wsy_DYjO8wW8ob6QCQ&q=online+marketing&oq=online+marketig&gs_l=psy-ab.3.0.0i13k1l10.752848.756575.0.757291.21.15.2.3.3.0.358.1898.0j6j2j1.9.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..7.12.1560...0j0i67k1j0i10k1.0.cJYGr1QUGsc#imgdii=egsONTOMM9F1YM:&imgrc=6NlZ2GpPU2SJKM:

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So guys? I hope I gave you the idea on some marketing strategies that you may implement if you have a business like this. Ciao!