Restore the School Store

Students of EHS, think back to when you had the chance to purchase Blue Hawk merch (non athletic) in all of your academic years. I’m going to guess that not many of you can think of that time. This year, the opportunity to buy Exeter gear was like April Fools’ Day; it came around once a year and when you got your items in the mail, the word “school” is spelled “shool,” and you have to wait several more weeks for a replacement product. For the remaining 364 days, nobody thinks about it. Time to fix this.

The current location of our Exeter High School merchandise store is online under the Collins Sports Chipply website. The problem with this is, at the time this article was written, the website loads a sign that says “Sorry, Store Closed.” The store stayed open for a week from September 14, through September 25th. Now, if we want an item, we either have to wait until next September or buy from a different website whose merchandise is dated. 

A solution to this problem that is beneficial to everyone is having our business classes such as “Intro to Business” run the store on certain days of the week, or a specific block each day. Not only do the students and staff have the ability to buy throughout the week, but this also builds business management skills for students in the business field. The school store can be stocked with so much more than just clothing. If you consider what is available in a college bookstore, other than the books, there is so much clothing, snacks, drinks, supplies, decorations, gifts, and accessories. We can also offer these things to promote our school and generate income. Having students run the store is just like the system running in the Marketing class at Seacoast School of Technology. When we have athletic or school events after school, it could also be opened and run by parent volunteers (like the snack shacks), or students looking for community service hours. 

The smaller reason for the store being physically open in the building, is that buying online can present a lot of problems which results in people tending to avoid it entirely. Sizing is difficult to judge online, you can’t feel the products, selection is minimal, and it takes more time than appreciated for delivery. 

This idea may take some time to execute, but imagine the possibilities and support whatever movement may come your way.