Giving a Read on Retail Trends Best-Selling Gifts at College Stores

By Sara Karnish

College stores are the headquarters for school spirit, stocking an array of merchandise that makes it easy for students, parents, and alumni to show off their campus pride. From stickers to stemware, wall art to wallets, college stores’ gift departments truly carry something for everyone.

“For gifts, it’s about thinking about your customers and trying to meet their needs with unique products,” said Mindy Bradford , manager of Licensed Products at University of Alabama’s University Supply Store in Tuscaloosa, Ala. “We get the orientation and move-in, and campus tours who drop off right outside our store, so we get that traffic. I’m not sure the students shop here as much, but we get the parents, the fans, and the prospective students. For me, I think about gifts at various price points, and students coming here from out-of-state—what’s small and will travel well on a plane?”

Karri Shearer , apparel and gift buyer for the KU Campus Store at Kutztown University in Kutztown, Pa., said her top selling tip is “a variety of items that are merchandised well and marketing new items on our social media platforms.” Gift best-sellers at KU include “mugs and blankets with the Kutztown logo, and in non-logoed products, trends are “Squishmallows and stickers.”

Feedback and customer requests are major drivers for stocking merchandise of all kinds. Jenni McDow- ell , non-emblematic buyer at Western Washington University’s AS Bookstore in Bellingham, Wash., welcomes input from students. “The first thing I do is listen to what the students want as far as what they want to see in the store. Sometimes what they want evolves. A lot of it has to do with research and how we merchandise it. We try to make the displays look inviting and easy to shop from. We promote it as much as we can on social media so students see an item and say, ‘This is cute. I can see this in my life.’ We are a tote-centric school, so tote bags generally sell well. There is one tote from a company called One Lane Road that features this certain kind of red-and-white mushroom, and it’s selling phenomenally,” McDowell explained. “I don’t know if our students get away from using backpacks because they are out of high school, and maybe they view it as, ‘I used a backpack in high school and don’t want to use one anymore.’ There is one type of waterproof backpack that is popular, but we can’t stock it just yet because it is at a much higher price point than we usu-

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