7 Lucrative Lemonade Stand Ideas for Tons of Success

Are you looking to take your lemonade stand to a whole new level? These 7 lucrative lemonade stand ideas will bring you lots of success and loads of fun. Free printables included to help you get started!

This post may contain affiliate links at no extra cost to you.

I love lemonade stands because they can teach so many important lessons and useful skills to kids in a fun, real life way.

My boys recently put together and ran a very successful lemonade stand during our neighborhood garage sale. They had so much fun preparing for it and had a blast running it. The cherry on the top was when they discovered that they had more than doubled their profits from their last lemonade stand enterprise!

Throwing together a lemonade stand isn’t hard, but making it a successful one, now that’s another story! You might get a sale or two by mixing some lemonade and throwing up a sign, but it won’t be nearly as profitable or as fun, if you don’t follow these 7 lemonade stand ideas.

TOP LEMONADE STAND IDEAS
1. Plan your Lemonade Stand with Another Event
2. Make the Lemonade Stand the Focal Point
3. Create an Eye-Catching Lemonade Stand
4. Role Play Selling Lemonade Beforehand
5. Offer Beyond Lemonade
6. Sell Quality Lemonade and Treats
7. Priced to Sell

If you apply these tips, you will have a successful lemonade stand! Keep reading for insights into each.

7 LEMONADE STAND IDEAS

1. Plan your Lemonade Stand with Another Event

Advertising your lemonade stand helps bring in neighbors and friends, but advertising a garage sale brings in those people plus a whole lot more! Also, those people shopping your secondhand items are already in the mindset to spend money. My number one lemonade stand idea would be to schedule your lemonade stand to take place during another event that is complimentary to your lemonade stand.

Our neighborhood announced that they were going to have a community yard sale. We didn’t have much in our current giveaway stash, but since my boys really wanted to set up a lemonade stand, I went on a purging spree to gather a several more items. I’ve found that people don’t always stop for lemonade, but they will for the possibility of finding a great deal at a garage sale. If they stop to peruse the items we are selling, 9 out of 10 people will make a purchase from our lemonade stand, even if they didn’t buy anything at our garage sale. In fact, the vast majority didn’t buy a single thing from us, but they did from my boy’s lemonade stand!

So what is the best place to sell lemonade? Somewhere that gets a lot of heavy foot traffic! Aside from yards sales, some other great places to set up a lemonade stand are a church event, school function, sporting event are great options, but be sure to ask permission first before doing so.

It’s easy to drive past kids when a person is in their car, but it is a lot harder to avoid their eye contact and cuteness when walking right by them!

2. Make the Lemonade Stand the Focal Point!

It’s all about location! If the lemonade stand is hidden in the back of the driveway, potential customers have to go out of their way to make a purchase. By putting it front and center, people have to pass right by it. Which gives your kids the opportunity to greet everyone with a friendly hello and lure them in with their charm.

We set up our lemonade stand at the edge of our driveway angled a bit toward where most oncoming traffic comes from. The boys brainstormed solutions of how to get people’s attention when selling lemonade. They decided to get a bit creative to attract more customers. The week before, we constructed and painted two large lemons out of cardboard. We then put two holes in the top of both and connected it with string.

Their plan was to have someone stand at the edge of the driveway wearing the lemon costume smiling and waving at every car that drove by. Knowing the adorableness of little children, they coaxed their two year old brother to wear the lemon.

He lasted for about five minutes, but he did bring in some customers! They then solicited the help of their four year old brother and he used a new tactic all of his own. Instead of waving with a smile on his face, he put his hand out straight and blatantly told them to STOP!

It worked! We had several people say they stopped solely because of him! It was so hilarious that I videoed him doing it and compiled it in a short clip that you must watch!!!

3. Create an Eye-Catching Lemonade Stand

We’ve all seen the small table with a pitcher of lemonade on top and a sign in front which reads, “Lemonade for sale!” It works, but it can also give the impression that what you’re selling is subpar. So how do you make your lemonade stand more popular?

By dressing it up and giving it some curb appeal! Make your lemonade stand look absolutely fabulous and really standout! This can easily be done by hanging a banner, displaying colorfully coordinating printables, blowing up a few balloons, and adding other fun embellishments.

We weren’t the only ones who planned to set up a lemonade stand during our community garage sale. The neighbors who did, had a primo spot close to the front of our neighborhood entrance. We were located deeper down.

But even though our location wasn’t as good, we still did very well. Several people told us that they had passed up the first lemonade stand, but when they saw ours they couldn’t resist the cute set up and had to stop.

We made our lemonade stand from an old wooden box my husband’s work was getting rid of. The boys and I adorned it with a few lemon themed printables, which you can grab for FREE at the bottom of this post!

And don’t forget about your kid’s appearance! Have them dress the part by looking sharp and not like they just rolled out of bed! Have them in matching hats or fun themed shirts. If you have girls selling the lemonade, these little dresses would be downright adorable!

Recreate the look:

4. Role Play Selling Lemonade Beforehand

This is one of my favorite lemonade stand ideas because it really helps build up the excitement for your kids and get them ready! Prepare them beforehand with how to greet customers, how to give change, etc. by role playing possible situations. The lemonade stand venture is a great opportunity to teach your kids about entrepreneurship as well as the basics of finance, presentation, sales, and customer service skills. Tutor your child how to properly give the correct change while counting out loud. Act out purchasing a few items and have them practice adding up everything quickly and then giving correct change.

There were many people who came to me to ask if I had change for a purchase of something from the lemonade stand. When I replied that my boys could handle the change, they were very surprised and impressed.

Happiness is contagious. Encourage your kids to be kind and outgoing. People aren’t stopping at the lemonade stand solely because they want to buy lemonade. More often than not, they are stopping to support your child in their entrepreneurship enterprise. So make sure they get the customer service that makes them happy that they did.

Encourage them to engage with everyone passing by with a friendly smile, wave, and “Hello! How are you?” Go over different potential scenarios like when someone says they don’t want to buy anything or if they give you the wrong amount of cash.

By this simple role playing, your kids will be well prepared and feel much more comfortable and confident interacting with customers.

5. Offer Beyond Lemonade

Not everyone is a fan of lemonade and most who are, will usually stop after one glass. Increase your sales by going beyond just lemonade.

You may be asking well what else can kids sell at a lemonade stand? Baked goods are always a great option and go along deliciously with freshly squeezed lemonade! You could also sell prepackaged snacks that can be bought in bulk like candy and chips, but just make sure nothing will melt outside!

We sold homemade brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and rice krispie treats (these are seriously the BEST rice krispies ever!) at our stand, along with bottled water and bubble gum. The brownies were a hot commodity, and although we made a double batch, we completely sold out!

Recreate the look:

6. Sell Quality Lemonade and Treats

Word gets around. If you are selling tasty baked goods and the best delicious tasting lemonade around, people will tell their friends, and they will come back for more! If you are worried about covering your costs, it might be better to give smaller portions than skimp on the quality.

Even though we were only open for a few hours, we had a customer come back and say, “Hey remember me? I came back for another treat!”

Also be sure the packaging and display of the items follows the same level of excellence.

To add a professional look and make it easier for customers, we individually packaged each item in clear baggies or used cling wrap. I also designed some bright lemon themed printable tags to label and price the baked goods. You can grab them all at the end of this post!

We made our lemonade from scratch and boy was it delicious! To prevent spills, we served the lemonade in a drink dispenser with a spigot and had the customers pour their own cup.

7. Priced to Sell

Can kids make money with a lemonade stand? Most definitely yes! How much, well that depends on your purpose.

If you are really just helping your young kids have a great learning experience, you may not be overly interested in making much of a profit. Or maybe you have older kids and want to dive deeper into entrepreneurship by teaching them how to account for costs and price accordingly. Or perhaps you are raising money to give to your favorite charity. Whatever the reason, it will play a part in how you price out your lemonade.

So how much you should charge for lemonade? Just be sure you don’t price it so high that it turns people away and take account for costs before you price it too cheap. All lemonade is not created equal! Powder concentrate is no comparison to freshly squeezed lemonade in taste, price, and preparation time.

Another idea would be not to price it at all and have the customers pay you what they want. It’s a bit of a gamble, but most people are fair and even quite generous. It can be even more effective if the reason for selling is for a charitable cause.

And don’t forget a tip jar! It doesn’t have to be fancy, but as I said before, most people are happy to support children’s entrepreneurship ventures and will tip generously.

Don’t forget your Lemonade Stand themed Printables!

One of the best lemonade stand ideas, as stated earlier, is using printables! So to help you get a jump start on you lemonade stand ideas, I’m providing you with all printables I created for our lemonade stand. Just click on the link below to grab them! Then head over to your downloads folder and you’ll find the file in a zip file. Simply double click to open it and then print. You can find the lemon banner in this post over here.

< Click here to download the Lemonade Stand Prints >

All designs are for PERSONAL USE ONLY. You may not forward, share, sell or re-distribute the file. Ownership and copyright over all designs & graphics contained in the files are property of AspenJay.

Hope you gained some valuable insight from these Lemonade Stand Ideas!

Are there any helpful lemonade stand ideas or tips that you would add to the list? Let me know in the comments below!

Did you find this post helpful? Then be sure to save THIS PIN!