What Students Want

by Dan Angelo

Every vendor at the CAMEX26 tradeshow traveled to Phoenix, AZ, with plans to work with as many of the NACS member stores in attendance as possible. At the same time, they understood the real customers were the students back home on each campus.

NACS addressed that reality by inviting students from Grand Canyon University to be on the tradeshow floor, checking out the available products and providing their valuable feedback. A group of five Lope Shops student employees and seven other university students walked the floor, collected vendor swag, and came away with a wide variety of opinions.

For the campus store, what students want usually means the cool stuff. The cool apparel styles that stood out for the GCU students clearly promoted the school. Crew and mock neck merchandise was fine, but vintage and patchwork designs also caught their attention.

“I love the look of it,” said Benjamin Gilchrist, one of the student employees from the Lope Shores. “Streetwear is very big and I really liked the hats. For me, I like the oversized, especially the oversized tee shirts and oversized hoodies that look like they’ve been washed 20 times.”

Camouflage apparel was a favorite, but only the washed-out styles. Vests and puffer jackets with waffle sleeves were mentioned, along with items featuring silicone lettering, but the students also liked the look and feel of corduroy apparel items and merchandise with bold lettering and logos that goes across the back from sleeve to sleeve.

“I really liked the puffer jacket,” said Hannah Dodge, a GCU student. “It also had waffle sleeves. It’s something I would wear if I wanted to look a little more dressed up than with just a sweatshirt when I’m not about to wear a full sweatshirt.”

The students particularly liked the products from MV Sports, J America, Antiqua Apparel, and SWEATER x vetter, while The Duck Company’s hoodies and the hats from Zephyr were big hits.

Quality of the merchandise was also important.

The students appreciated the merchandise from the New York Puzzle Company for the quality and the company’s ability to customize puzzles, similar to Julia Gash merchandise. In addition, the difficult brain-teasing toys and puzzles at the Project Genius booth were singled out.

While quality is important, innovative products also stood out. There were staple-less staplers and soft-to-the-touch journal paper, while the booths offering coloring products, such as pens, pencils, markers, and crayons, were mentioned.

The Japanese company Kokuyu showed the staple-less staplers and the soft paper journals in their booth. When it came to coloring, many of the students stopped at the booths of Grabie, Lifeline, and Spoon Inc.

“One thing I saw that was more of a tech product was called the Creator Clone SSD from SanDisk,” said student Ava Reiser. “They were explaining it was a mag-safe device that you put on your phone for storage. My phone always needs more storage.”

Other innovations mentioned by the students came from Snakestaff Systems, which offered first aid supplies featuring QR codes that take users to instructions for the product. SmellWell products were designed by a Swedish soccer player to insert into shoes, athletic gear, and any place around the home where odors linger.

The students also liked the variety of bags from Sherpani and drinkware at the Elemental booth. However, the most mentioned vendor was Nellie’s, which offers environmentally friendly and sustainable products that are also allergen-free.

“You want to support a company that is doing something like that, but with Nellie’s, I just thought it was clean and simple and really just efficient,” student Vanessa Gonzales said. “It just feels like it was such a great way to be environmentally conscious, especially here in Arizona where nature is a priority.”

Another popular and innovative item was the SleekStrip from iQCOOL Design Products Inc. It attaches to the back of the phone, like the pop socket, but instead of being big and bulky, it’s just a strip that is pulled out to be used as a handle or stand.

Food and snacks are always a big hit with students and CAMEX26 had plenty vendors offering product to sample. There was one featuring ramen noodles, as well as the candy vendors Albanese Confectionary, Puré from Kano America, and KIND Snacks. The gummies from Puré were particular favorites.

However, the most talked-about food products were from 72 Chocolate and the Kapiko coffee pods from Mayora, USA Inc. The attraction to both was their flavor, and the fact that either can replace a cup of coffee for a student on the run.

“I was torn on the two coffee candies,” says student Isaiah Begazo. “The Kapiko candies, you just suck on two of them like cough drops and it’s a cup of coffee.”

“In my opinion, the chocolate-covered coffee beans (Java Jolt from 72 Chocolate) were phenomenal,” says Tristan Begazo, Isaiah’s twin brother, both student-athletes at GCU. “If you’re in a rush and you don’t have time to make a cup of coffee, you just eat them in the car.”

There were plenty of products for the students to check out, with more than 170 vendors on the CAMEX26 tradeshow floor. The students had their clear favorites, but they all were impressed with the sheer amount of quality items available to the campus store.