Managing a pre-order is EASY with PushPress Pre-Orders.

One of the primary missions of the PushPress team is take gym owners away from manual processes and having sheets of paper everywhere. We have already revolutionized the way that digital documents are executed in PushPress powered gyms, but today we want to highlight a simple yet powerful solution to retail.  The Pre-Order.

Read how Jamie Hagiya used our Pre-Order system to raise money for regionals.

Pre-orders are critical to the business not getting stuck with dead stock which can easily make a successful shirt run go from profitable to loss. After loading a product into PushPress, we’ve made it quick and easy to create a pre-order and landing page to post in your private FB group. With our upcoming members mobile app, your members can easily select their size and charge their account immediately. You collect the funds right away and once your pre-order expires all you do is send the order list to your vendor. Once you receive your items, you hand them out to members and ‘Mark as picked up’.

No more clip boards, no more boxes full of old shirts that didn’t sold, no more lost profit, no more manually typing orders on a spreadsheet. 

Not convinced pre-orders are the way to go? Don’t take our word for it, here’s some words from Matt Albrizio, VP of Sales of Forever Fierce. The go to clothing supplier for CrossFit 913 and hundreds of other gyms around the country.

Why Pre-Orders Are A Must In Your Gym

Easily market and sell pre-orders to your members via our Member Portal

Over the past eight years we have spoken with thousands of gym owners.

We have identified one of the biggest issues in the small business arena today: excess inventory. Inventory is a pain for any business. Whether you’re a big box store, a corner store, or a fitness business with 100 members, excess inventory and “stuff that just won’t sell” will always be an issue. However, over the past three to five years, we have worked with small business owners to mitigate their risk.

A little background information before I get into the strategy: The screen printing and decorative apparel industry is the victim of “well here Sonny, this is how we’ve always done it…”. The problem here is a case of misaligned incentives. Screen printers have a sweet spot of 288+ items per job. The more jobs a production facility can take on with that volume, the more profitable the job. Unfortunately for the small business owner, 288 shirts at one time can be tremendously risky and a gigantic investment. If you are a small business owner who can move 300 shirts at a time, congratulations! I know how hard that is to do and it is impressive. However, if you can’t move 288+ shirts at a time, we have identified a strategy for you.

A quick fix that we have shared at many businesses is putting your apparel or retail items up for pre-order. A pre-order is simply having your members reserve the item before it arrives. This applies to supplements, jump ropes, apparel- whatever. It just gives you an accurate head count of what you need and to gauge interest.

Here are some of my quick thoughts on why you should set up a preorder:

1. You collect money up front- This forces people to commit to something. If you don’t collect money up front, you run the risk of someone saying “Yeah sorry I actually don’t have the money. Keep it for me though! I’ll get it next week!”…Spoiler alert: they will never purchase it.

2. You stimulate demand. The average American views thousands and thousands of ads each day. With so many business jockeying for their attention, the easiest way to stand out in the crowd is to make something scarce. By letting your clients or customers know that inventory will be very limited or non-existent, you force them to act.

3. Put your ego aside. You don’t need an order of 100 shirts if you historically only sell 50. Does this sound familiar? “Our previous apparel vendor said they would give me a good deal if I ordered 150 of them so I ordered a few extra just in case!”… If you’re waiting for just in case, that day will never come (unless you are a very, very high drop in traffic gym).

You’re probably wondering “How do I even go about organizing this. This seems like a lot of work”…In my video (https://foreverfierce.com/pages/preorder), I propose some logistics for setting up a preorder that is totally specific to each business.

So to recap:

We identified one of the biggest headaches for businesses today: excess inventory

We reviewed why apparel providers steer you to big quantities

We reviewed some of the reasons why you should organize a preorder

I provided access to my video discussing the different options and strategies you can use to organize a preorder

Matt Albrizio
VP of Sales
Forever Fierce