Selling pasta sauce without a spreadsheet
A school fundraiser is rarely a problem of selling. Parents want the sauce. The problem starts afterwards: who ordered what, who has paid, exactly how many tubs to order from the supplier, and who still hasn’t come to collect. Traditionally that is the job of one heroic parent with a spreadsheet and a shoebox full of order slips.
For the Mater Dei school in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe we turned that into a web shop. The two parents’ committees sell fresh bolognese sauce from BAVET together, and every cent goes into things for the pupils of both the secondary school and the primary school.
The front: one page, three sauces
The shop is a single page. Three sauces — classic, special and vegan — with their allergens, a counter for each, and a form that asks for what the school will need later on: name, email, mobile number, the class of the oldest child and that child’s name. Payment is by Bancontact or card.
Beyond that it says what people actually want to know: until when you can order, and when you come and pick it up. No account to create, no basket that loses itself, no four-screen checkout.
The back: the panel that does the work
The admin panel is where the real gain sits. At the top is the count per sauce — literally the number you go and order from BAVET. Below it every order with its order number, searchable, each with a “mark as collected” button. Plus an export to Excel, for those who do want a table after all.
The wording is theirs: the intro on the shop, the subject and body of the confirmation email, the thank-you message after payment, and who gets notified on every order. There is even a “coming soon” switch, for the stretch where the shop is already online but ordering hasn’t opened yet.
What it costs
A mini shop like this starts at € 500. That covers the design in the organisation’s own style, setting up and configuring the shop (products, prices, allergens, collection slot, the questions on the form), help applying for and setting up the payment provider, the emails, and the launch itself.
For € 1,000 you get a system that stays put: the same shop, reused all year round for the next sale or the next event. Different products, different dates, the same buttons. Set it up once, use it the rest of the year.
What it doesn’t cover: the payment provider’s transaction fees — those go straight between you and them — and hosting, from € 365 a year. No subscription, and no cut of what you raise. That part is yours.
Not built for sauce
The first version of this thing sold VIP passes for Onder de Draak during the Ghent Festival. Then it became a spaghetti sale. It works just as well for a wine sale, breakfast baskets, Easter chocolate, a pancake drive or tickets to the school party.
The conditions are simple: you have something to sell, a window to order in, a moment when it gets collected, and someone who will want to know afterwards who is coming to pick up what. Schools, scouts, sports clubs, parents’ committees — same story, different product.
No budget, but a good reason?
Five hundred euros isn’t a given for every association either. We get that. Every year we take on a number of projects pro bono; how that works and who it is for is on our pro bono page.
If you do have the budget, or you’re not sure: call or email us. Tell us what you’re selling and when it has to go out the door. If it fits a mini shop like this, we’ll say so. If it doesn’t, we’ll say that too.