Triton Outfitters Mobile Store Will Icrease Business On Library Walk In 2011-12

The idea for an A.S. store was first conceived in 2009 as former All-Campus Senator Tobias Haglund’s senator project. The original proposal — which passed unanimously at the last A.S. meeting of Spring 2010 — suggested setting up a brick-and-mortar store in Price Center. This year, Associate Vice President of Enterprise Operations Brian McEuen decided that the store should become a mobile one to save $80,000.

“He proposed an idea to make it into a mobile store,” 2010-11 Vice President of Finance and Resources Andrew Ang said. “This way we could start small, try to generate logistics on what the market is, what merchandise sells, what kind of events we should be targeting, who we should be targeting, what kind of merchandise we should do if it’s seasonal or if we should be doing other kinds of merchandise for outreach.”

A.S. Council allocated $204,000 for the store’s start-up costs in Spring Quarter 2010, after which Ang and McEuen became responsible for the enterprise’s success.

“In terms of costs, our budget allowed for a $7,000 build out of the space, and we did come in under budget,” McEuen said in an email. “These items are, of course, depreciated over the terms of their estimated lives, which for most of our hardware is over three years.”

Triton Outfitters opened at the first Bear Garden of Spring Quarter this year and continued in weeks four through seven, during which it sold Sun God Festival merchandise. The store sold out of its Sun God apparel and had to re-order many of its other merchandise by the end of the quarter.

“Since Triton Outfitters became the exclusive retailer of Sun God Merchandise, we were able to more than quadruple the profits from last year with lower costs and much higher revenue,” McEuen said.

Although the fiscal year is not yet over, the store brought in approximately over $11,000 in profit this quarter. McEuen deemed the store a success as it brought profit and was popular among students.

“Students seemed to take a great liking to the store and brought it into their fold of daily campus life seemlessly,” McEuen said.

Partnering with A.S. Graphics Studio, which bears no extra costs, the A.S. store developed a causes line that donates proceeds to non-profit organizations.

“I think for right now, we have three shirts that target different non-profit organizations,” Ang said. “We have one for the events in Japan, where all the proceeds will go to helping an organization for the events in Japan.”

The store will operate for four weeks every quarter next year. Currently, there are no plans for developing Triton Outfitters into a permanent space.

“Triton Outfitters will start to become a main fixture of the campus next year as we plan to be open for business at least four weeks a quarter.”

Ang will not be involved in Triton Outfitters next school year, but said that this year’s goals of developing more merchandise, increasing revenue, increasing student organization involvement and increasing availability will carry on into next year.

“When I was in office, the focus was to really get the student orgs involved in this and make this A.S. store really be out there for the students,” Ang said. “And also to one day maybe develop a plan where we can become an on-campus store and really develop a marketing plan to really outreach to the student body.”

The store also launched a website, to.ucsd.edu, which is still under construction but will allow students to shop online.

More to Discover
Donate to The UCSD Guardian
$200
$500
Contributed
Our Goal

Your donation will support the student journalists at University of California, San Diego. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment, keep printing our papers, and cover our annual website hosting costs.

Donate to The UCSD Guardian
$200
$500
Contributed
Our Goal