News Article

CNA students/alumni now able to buy official college merchandise


9/25/2009 8:58:28 AM


Students and alumni of College of the North Atlantic can now easily show their school pride by purchasing jackets, shirts and loads of other items on the college’s new online store, launched on Friday, Sept. 25.

The college has been operating its e-store internally for nearly a year, utilizing that time to ensure there was ample product on the site and to work out any bugs that may have lessened the customer experience.

“We are really excited to finally be able to provide our staff, students, alumni and anyone else interested, with the ability to avail of some really nice college clothing at very competitive prices,” said Stephen Lee, manager of marketing and communications at CNA.

Lee said the e-store was a combined result of necessity and opportunity.

“There was an internal need at the college to move toward centralized purchasing for promotional products. The e-store allows this to happen, but for us in marketing it also provides an opportunity to have better control over our logo and brand, and the ability to make these products available to a much wider audience.”

With the introduction of a new college logo last June, Lee said this was an opportune time to unveil the e-store to the public. He also says the college has seen a lot of apparel and other promo items in the past where the logo was not rendered properly. This is something the college needed to address and have worked tirelessly with the e-store vendor to ensure the featured products are of good quality and that the logo and other marks appear in accordance with CNA’s standards.

Identifying what articles of clothing would be best suited for such a broad audience was a major undertaking, as was gathering items that would be considered useful for CNA staff, students, alumni and the public.

“We have a fair amount of product on the e-store now, but we are always monitoring the latest in trends and styles and will continually update the e-store with new items to ensure customers can find products they want,” explains Lee. “For our internal clients, there is also an advanced search feature that allows access to about 400,000 other items so the list of what’s available is quite extensive.

“We know students in particular like to purchase class jackets and hoodies, sometimes using these as fundraisers. We have worked with the e-store vendor to make a selection of items available at a 30% discount by clicking on the Group Purchases link. There, e-store shoppers can find jackets and other items that can be customized to their liking at a fantastic price.”

To see CNA’s e-store go to their homepage at www.cna.nl.ca or directly to www.cnaestore.com .

-30-

For more information contact:

Roger Hulan
Communications Specialist
College of the North Atlantic
(709) 643-7938
roger.hulan@cna.nl.ca