We’ve had some inquiries about allowing troops to have their own online stores within TroopTrack.
I think this is great, but rather than taking a shot in the dark with our designs, we would like to hear from all of you.
Tell us how you would like to use your store (if we decide to proceed with development).
Who would you be selling to?
What types of products would you like to sell?
If shipping is necessary, how will it be handled?
How would you like it to work?
If you’d like, describe how it works in your head from the Troop’s point of view and from the customer’s point of view.
We appreciate everyone who uses the TroopTrack community. We need a lot of discussions and ideas before we can push forward with this one.
Quickly, I could see this being used to sell apparel (troop T-shirts etc) or for uniform exchange. It would be nice to be able to post pictures of the inventory, so we don’t have to bring these items to every troop meeting. Quantity available would also be nice to have. Maybe tie all this to an order form???
We would be selling to families (including siblings) in the troop and former members. I don’t think we would need shipping, since we are only selling within the troop.
I would use it for an Uniform Exchange. Many families don’t keep their outgrown uniforms for sentimental reasons and would rather sell them to new scouts. Many new scouts would rather save money and purchase gently used uniforms.
We also make and sell troop t-shirts that can be worn as casual uniform alternatives to the dress shirts at den meetings so as to keep the dress shirt in good condition for the pack meetings and other formal events. Having an online resource for this would save time and confusion at den and pack meetings.
If PayPal can be used through this that would be great. If not, just having it set up as a way to place orders and pay in cash/check at meetings when the item is delivered is still helpful for knowing how much to order or what to bring to a meeting since someone placed an order.
I would use it a little differently. I would want to use it for used uniforms as mentioned, but also for new product the parent/girl needs to purchase. So, they sign up and need a uniform (assume new) and handbook, I could check these things and it would add to shopping cart (or a different, but similar list). Or, I could/would use it for badges/patches. I’d love an option on each badge edit screen to have a check box to order for this (I know there’s a purchased checkbox, but this is slightly different). Choosing any of these items would automatically bill the girl. I’d love to be able to put in the price (that would allow multiple categories for a given item), etc.
I Also feel a store would be useful for uniform and other items owned and sold by the unit as I am sitting here looking at a box of Class '“B” shirts. I don’t think we would use it for used uniforms as our unit does not get involved financially with them. the money exchange would be difficult, Possibly a classified section, users could post it similar to an announcement.
We sell only to the troop. So, we would like the store to be available only after the user has logged in.
We are selling apparel primarily. So, the data fields would need to be as follows:
Price
Size
Color
Product Description
Product Pictures (Multiple Pictures)
Notification email (Products are not managed by 1 person. We would need to notify the person who is responsible for this product bring the product to the next meeting)
Payment options - Pay with Scout Account, online Payment system, Pay when delivered
Parents mostly, but also the general public for fundraisers.
Uniform sets (uniforms + sewing service + pickup and delivery - the whole package)
Popcorn and other fundraisers
Books and other accessories
I don’t know the best way to do this. Most of our deliveries would be local.
It may be better if this was a 3rd party integration with trooptrack. Maybe a company that does this specific thing very well and takes a small fee. Stores are a pain to develop and maintain and I’m not sure TT has scaled up enough to deliver something like this that works well, but I would definitely like to have it as an option.
Did anything ever come of this Troop Store concept? I was asked by another adult leader last week if we could enable our annual Class B T-shirt sale through TroopTrack with PayPal or scout account funds. If everyone was the same size and only buying a single t-shirt, we could set up the t-shirt sale as an event. However, we have sizes ranging to XS to XXL and some people buy 3-4 t-shirts for the year. It would be great if there was a simple way to enable in TroopTrack.
I would be happy with having an inventory list for uniforms like the library. Then members could request certain items be brought to a meeting, just like merit badge books. Pictures would help and a designated person could receive the request email and would manage the items in the inventory list.
I think troop stores would be great. In addition to the previous comments I think it could also be helpful for donations and maybe even fundraising. Shipping would be nice but not necessary as items could be picked up or delivered by the troop.
I highly doubt this is even on the radar anymore. There was a small feature added where you can add additional items to an individual event, which people could then pay for from TT however its not truly a store.
This is something we would like to add in the future, but it won’t be in the immediate future. We have just one developer and he is responsible for keeping pretty much the entire site up and running, so we can only do so much so fast, and this would be a pretty time-consuming new feature to add. It is on the radar, but it won’t be something we can implement in the near future. Sorry!
Could a “troop store” feature be incorporated into the fundraiser area? I’m only a month in to using TT and still learning, but I think I can almost get there right now. An inventory field for each item would be extremely helpful.