Add another voice to the chorus of people dissatisfied with the Usdan University Center.
Many campus vendors have expressed displeasure about their new home in Usdan. While the vendors previously set up tables on the first floor of the Davenport Campus Center, they now sell their wares behind the central staircase on the ground floor of Usdan.
Business has suffered during the year, and some vendors say they are not coming back.
“It seems like nobody is doing any good business here,” said Jim Richards, who has sold jewelry at the University for the past six years and is thinking of moving back to the area outside of Davenport. “What creates business is when there is a kind of focus—a place where people hang; it seems like that doesn’t really exist anymore.”
Other vendors noted being less concerned with the change of venue than with the specific location they have been designated within Usdan.
Larry Nelson, who has been selling handmade jewelry and postcards at the University since the 1980s, wishes that the Usdan management would allow him to set up his tables in front of the central staircase. He explained that he would prefer to be in the café area or against the ground floor windows.
Norden Sherpa, who sells handmade scarves and clothing, echoed Nelson’s sentiments.
“Selling is all about displaying,” he said.
Students generally agreed that the current set up is problematic.
“It’s sort of awkward when they’re inside right by the stairs,” said Ruthie Lazenby ’10. “I’ve knocked over a rack before. It was awkward and embarrassing.”
The Usdan management noted that lack of business should not necessarily be blamed on the location of the vendors in Usdan.
“The vendors haven’t been doing that well…a lot of them haven’t been making any money,” said Associate Director of Operations at Usdan Joanne Rafferty.
Although Rafferty concedes that the vending location in Usdan is not ideal, she explained that the management is reluctant to disrupt the popular café or couch area to accommodate vendors.
Instead, Rafferty suggested that the real problem lies in the merchandise itself. She pointed out that, though local vendors are suffering, local farmers are doing well at Usdan Farmers Markets.
“What they’re offering is maybe not what you guys want,” Rafferty said, noting that there are some vendors who have done well in Usdan, such as the poster-sellers near the beginning of the school year.
Some of the vendors conceded that they do seem to do better business with customers who are not students. The prime customers for Nelson’s jewelry, for example?
“What I affectionately call grownups,” Nelson joked. “[Students] must be looking for hemp necklaces.”
Similarly, Sherpa said that while his scarves sell well to female students, he does the bulk of his sales at local crafts fairs.
Rafferty explained that Usdan management may try to recruit more popular vendors for the fall, and may even survey the campus next year to get a sense of what particular vendors might do better here.
“I think it only works if it’s something that you guys want,” Rafferty said. “Students change, and we need to change with you.”
Meanwhile, the vendors seem unhappy but resigned to their new place behind the Usdan staircase.
“It’s kind of too bad that they spent all this money and [the campus] lost its center,” Richards said.
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