News

Shop ND from home—in your pajamas
By Carol C. Bradley

Registration for RecSports spring classes opened at 7:30 a.m. on January 15—and before noon, more than 1,000 classes had been purchased online through RecRegister.

Until recently, registering for a class meant walking across campus to Rolfs Sports Recreation Center to stand in line and pay with cash or check.
RecSports has joined other campus departments in offering online registration and secure credit card payment through ND Marketplace (marketplace.nd.edu) the University’s centralized e-commerce service. Established in 2003, the ND Marketplace staff helps campus “merchants” improve and develop sites that range from selling items to booking registrations.

As with the RecSports registration program, the result often is convenient for the campus community. Of the new RecSports registration system, Sally Derengoski, director of RecSports, notes that of 1,400 class registrations for spring programs, only 17 people registered in person. The system also saved time for staff, who used to handle in-person registration.

Besides meeting the shopper experience expectations set by Amazon.com or EBay, says manager Jeff Simko, ND Marketplace staff solutions satisfy online shopper concerns about credit card security.

Through ND Marketplace’s online “stores,” you can purchase Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) publications, subscribe to the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, register for Career Center events, or (with a FOAPAL number) order office refreshments through Notre Dame Vending.

Students use the site to purchase Domer Dollars, sign up for St. Michael’s Laundry service and register for Senior Week activities. The Student Shop offers CDs of music by the Folk Choir, Bagpipe Band and Liturgical Choir, as well as logo apparel for the Squash Club, Women’s Ice Hockey or ND Rugby teams.

With these stores existing online, says Simko, ND Marketplace solutions allow groups to expand their customer base from on-campus to around the world.

Simko says he believes that ND Marketplace solutions could be serving a far broader base of campus constituents, “whether it’s donation acceptance, registration for conferences or merchandise sales.”

ND Marketplace staff provides initial planning, store site development, design and marketing. The staff is paid for its work by receiving a quarterly fee and 1 percent of revenue. Smaller clients pay a larger percentage of revenues but not the quarterly fee. The staff even has identified an option for merchants to purchase paid Google advertising.

For information on developing an ND Marketplace store, contact Simko at 631-2639 or jsimko1@nd.edu.