YouMaryland.com capitalizes on thriving student group market

The juggling club, the badminton club, Revolutions Dance Team, Student Entertainment Events - they all have one thing in common: YouMaryland.com.

Capitalizing on the need to show university and group pride, the student-run website that began this semester customizes merchandise for student clubs and organizations. With a selection of more than 600,000 products such as volleyballs, T-shirts and bags, YouMaryland.com allows clubs and organizations to make purchases directly through the website.

"The biggest selling point [of YouMaryland.com] is that we will give any price and we'll almost 100 percent of the time beat [an opponent's] price," said Nathan Deck, a junior accounting major and employee of YouMaryland.com.

Although YouMaryland.com just started up this semester, the website has already generated business with several groups.

"We learned of YouMaryland during the StampFest Student Organization Fair and were excited to learn that a student organization was taking on a project of this kind," said Melissa Kallas, the marketing director of SEE.

"They have a wide selection of goods, are very knowledgeable and are extremely helpful," she said.

The president of the juggling club also found YouMaryland.com useful.

"I recently asked YouMaryland for a quote for juggling club T-shirts," junior journalism major Christian Kloc said. "They gave me a flier advertising their services at StampFest, so I figured it would be worthwhile to check it out... The person I e-mailed seemed very nice and responsive."

The website started after Non-Traditional Media, an educational marketing firm, approached the Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity about the prospect of running a website to sell merchandise to student groups. NTM runs similar websites at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Delaware. While Alpha Kappa Psi runs all the marketing and pricing of the merchandise on the website, Non-Traditional Media puts all the orders through.

"The YouMaryland partnership focuses on building relationships with student groups, Greek organizations and departments on campus," said Dmitriy Portnyagin, a sophomore economics and marketing major who helps run the website. "Non-Traditional Media has given us nearly autonomous control over operations and serves to provide us with the resources and prior experience to better serve our Maryland community," he said.

YouMaryland.com employees said they provide solid customer service and low prices.

"We are a student-run organization, and instead of getting quotes from other companies, we give you face time with students you know," said Ankit Bhalla, a junior accounting and operations management major who helps run YouMaryland.com. "You're buying from friends rather than strangers.

"The initiative has shifted to the Maryland Chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi, and we are working to revamp the website to make it more user friendly and to better appeal to the needs of UMD students," Bhalla added.

Besides selling merchandise, YouMaryland.com caters a portion of its website to the hygienic needs of fraternity and sorority houses. They supply houses with bulk portions of toilet paper, plates and many "green" products.

"They're products that houses need in higher quantities, and we are starting a service where houses can order and it will be delivered right to their door," Deck said. "If you run out of, say, toilet paper, you have to wait, and with this it's 100 percent next-day delivery, and it's like $200 or $300 cheaper than what the houses are currently getting from other places."

Students running YouMaryland.com hope to reach out to more organizations and expand the scope of the website in coming semesters.

"Right now, we're looking to expand," Bhalla said. "We've kicked off this semester and we're definitely going to be trying to change up a few things."

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