Update to MiniMall
On the advice of my 5-year-old, I should not report this on my blog. But, I think you’re all honest readers –
he thinks if I tell his brother made $227 today from mini-mall, someone reading this might steal the money. I am proud of them. Sales the first day were around $70, and they have one day left to sell. Start-up costs for the business, including loans and interests are around $90.
A mass of students poured into the tables, where different student businesses were set up. Many of the younger ones didn’t know a quarter from a dime — and I marveled at the patience of all the student business owners who carefully made change, explained the prices, and answered questions to the horde of students all asking questions at once. You can see a bit of it here. (It’s less than 30 seconds.) And, they calmly made change without getting flustered, as dollar bills and quarters (over $200!) were stuffed into their hands.
The first day, however, things did not look so good for the Shark Bites. Only six were sold the first day. The beach globes were the number one seller, followed by the turtles and then the slingshots. However, the slingshots are very popular. The problem with them, is that they cost about $1 to make — so they selling price, $2 is high. But 126 shark bites are sitting in my freezer. I explained to my son and his business partner, that they need to come up with a plan to purge those sharks out of my freezer.
So, the plan was to knock the price down to $.75, and to add a can of whipped cream to incite potential buyers with a squirt. We also spent a lot of time the first day explaining what a shark bite was — so, on the second day, we opened up the bags and stuck spoons in them as part of the merchandising plan. The result — 40 shark bites sold the second day.
We have one day left. The turtles are sold out. We have 6 or 7 beach globes left, 20 sling shots, and of course, around 80 shark bites. We can start fire sales tomorrow — as long as they don’t go below $.25 cents a shark, they will break just above even on the sharks.
Here’s some more pictures from the day … Chocolate-candy covered pretzels. 
One business made and bagged popcorn trail mix. 
Funny face tennis balls. 
More beach globes.
The set-up.
Some great mom-of-the-year sewed frogs and snakes — of course she was paid!
Balloon water bombs. 
More:
Related posts:
Well congratulations to him, that’s quite an accomplishment.
What a great idea. Whoever came up with it is brilliant.
Way to go. [Nice job (not) helping too.]
That is super cool. I enjoyed the video. Y’all must be getting worn out! I love the ingenuity those kids showed. They had some great merchandise. If I was in elementary school, they would have had me as a customer!
I love this idea - those kids were all so creative, it makes me want to pop buy and buy some stuff! I’ll bet the kids are having a ton of fun with this.
My opinion still stands - awesome.
I have so enjoyed reading about this project. It’s such a fabulous idea! Looks like quite a success and loads of fun!
[...] Making Shark Bites: The Ants Came Marching First Day Sales [...]
[...] how broke you are, if you can get access to an 88 cent box of Blue Jell-O and some boiling water, you can make some money. Actually just some rocks, empty baby food jars or some sponges could do the trick. The act of [...]
[...] First Day Sales [...]