After closing for a week, the campus bookstore in the Student Center South on Monday reopened and re-branded.
The bookstore, now simply called the UH Campus Store, opened its doors after a quick renovation. The store is now run by Follett, and a sign posted before the store opened boasted price matching, 80 percent off rentals and low priced used textbooks. Many students are also noticing a much cleaner store.
“It looks a little neater,” said Ph.D biology student Sydnee Eldridge. “Everything is parsed out a little more evenly”
Although the store has changed providers, much of it remains the same. Students can still expect to see apparel and other UH branded knick-knacks for about the same prices. The large wall of hats in the back of the store now has hoodies instead. The majority of the new stock is short sleeve T-shirts, and the round rack filled with discounted apparel is gone from the entrance of the store.
“It does seem like the color scheme is pretty consistent here, where as, I feel like they had a little more variety in the other one,” Eldridge said. “They did have some out there colors, and this is pretty much like red, gray, white, black.”
In the past, the lowest floor of the store is usually filled to the brim with plastic wrapped textbooks. The racks are currently empty, and new textbooks are still being ordered. Instead, there are cards students are encouraged to fill out and turn in to the register that will allow bookstore employees to alert students when their textbook comes in.
“The only thing that was inconvenient was that they make you come to the bookstore to get access codes to your online classes in the summer,” nutrition sophomore Fletcher Reyna said. “When it was the other one you could buy it online.”
The store does not yet have all of their stock in since Monday’s opening is not the official “grand opening” of the store, which will come later.
“I will say it does seem there is a bit more variety of the things you can see here, which I like,” Eldridge said.
The new store has a new website and new hours. They will also be selling Apple products and have an onsite repair technician on the lowest floor when they get all their stock in and do a more thorough renovation, which is not yet scheduled.
Fiction lovers can rejoice because there will be an entire section of the store dedicated to best selling novels.
If students are looking for a job on campus the bookstore is still hiring, according to a sign near the registers. If students would like to apply they can visit Follett’s website.
Students will not immediately see much of a difference between the old store and the new one, but the store has not yet been picked clean, meaning students can get their sizes before they are gone.
“I’m just glad I found shorts that fit my size instead of just youth shorts,” said Ph.D biology student Jonathan Teetsel.