Rapid web shop set-up allows artist to maximise a royal fundraising opportunity
When her touching illustrations of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and one of their corgis went viral on social media after the death of Her Majesty, artist Kerri Cunningham saw a brilliant opportunity to raise money for charity.
Captivated by the sketches, the public were asking to buy them. Kerri needed a user-friendly web shop that could handle such a large volume of orders quickly, in a cost-effective way. The clock was ticking whilst interest in the artwork and fundraising potential was at its peak.
Dynamic web shop software needed to make a charity project possible
Print volumes were unpredictable, so a print on demand solution was required to minimise waste and maximise funds raised. Interest in Kerri’s sketches of The Queen was coming from all over the world, so the web shop would need to facilitate international shipping too.
Enter SwagOnline – a state of the art web to print and ecommerce solution
The NSPCC was Kerri’s chosen charity. Queen Elizabeth II had been a patron for many years and the artist has three young children of her own. Emma Marsh from SwagOnline saw Kerri’s callout for web shop and print on demand companies and knew our cutting-edge platform could make this project an overnight success. Backed up by THEMPC’s capabilities around fulfilment and worldwide distribution we knew we had the solution Kerri needed.
SwagOnline is an innovative, sophisticated and convenient web shop and merchandise management platform. Behind the scenes, it empowers ‘sellers’ like artist Kerri to place their trust in our team to upload and sell their products whilst we take care of all the printing and fulfilment of every order, handle stock and ship worldwide.
SwagOnline can be integrated with ecommerce software, our chosen platforms being WooCommerce and Stripe, customers can browse for and buy what they want from the web print shop, when they want it. It was the ideal way for Kerri to sell her sketches quickly and easily.
She would not be able to print and fulfil such a large volume of orders from across the world herself, so our task with SwagOnline was to support the sale and delivery of A4 and A5 prints, A6 greeting card packs and a selection of bundles – as fast as possible.
Time to deploy SwagOnline’s extensive web shop capabilities
SwagOnline can be customised to suit the requirements of each individual business. Here’s how we turned its vast potential into fundraising success for Kerri of Murphys Sketches and the NSPCC:
- Developed a branded, user-friendly web shop using the SwagOnline merchandise management software, providing an online print store from which customers could purchase the prints and SwagOnline could manage the web to print orders and shipping on Kerri’s behalf
- Integrated the web shop with WooCommerce – an ecommerce platform – utilising Stripe to handle a high volume of payments
- Produced print samples on high grade Stucco Old Mill Classic White 280gsm paper for Kerri to approve, working with Fedrigoni, a specialist premium quality paper manufacturer
- Utilised our in-house Canon ImagePress c810 Digital Press to produce high-quality prints on demand
- Took product photos, wrote product descriptions and uploaded everything to the web shop
- Suggested prices for each of Kerri’s products
- Linked the web shop up with Royal Mail, to automatically calculate postage costs based on exact weights and dimensions of chosen items and their destination – This also produced the shipping labels for each shipment
- Monitored and managed paper and envelope stock levels, ensuring sufficient levels maintained for immediate print turn around on order placement
- Handled worldwide shipping to open the fundraising project to an international audience
Innovative technology helps raise over £17,000 for the NSPCC
The collaboration between Kerri (Murphys Sketches) and THEMPC SwagOnline has been a fundraising success story and has allowed us to show off its impressive scope as an online print & merchandise sales management platform.
- Kerri has a user-friendly web shop and convenient print on demand, fulfilment and shipping solution for her art
- Approximately 5,000 items sold through the print shop since its launch mid-September, with 2,200 orders processed in the first 2 weeks alone
- Every order was printed on demand and shipped within 24-72 hours of being received
- 100% of the profits go to the NSPCC (minus web development charges, print and postal costs)
- More than £17,000 has been raised for the NSPCC to date
- Print on demand means prints are only produced when orders are placed – budget and planet friendly
Kerri Cunningham, Murphys Sketches artist, commented:
“SwagOnline from THEMPC has empowered me to raise funds for an important cause, in celebration of the life of our beloved Queen. It was set up in no time at all and with ease as their team took care of everything for me, print & shipping was left solely to them, leaving me with more time to advertise the prints, push sales and create my art. I simply couldn’t have achieved such a brilliant fundraising total without SwagOnline.”
Do you need a scalable, flexible web shop solution that includes printing, stock management and easy global shipping – all under one roof? SwagOnline makes it happen – fast. Please contact us to discuss your requirements. Call +44(0)1256 352415 or email swagonline@thempc.co.uk.