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Photos by Lydia Calderon/ECHO
The Olivet College bookstore, located under the Kirk Center, and now in the Pyne Pavilion at The Cutler Event Center, has experienced record sales during the 2015 Comet football season.
Quoting sales of $5,000-plus per football game this season, these are record-setting numbers for the bookstore, according to Sylvia Burkett, the bookstore manager.
For Burkett, it has been all about location, location, location since she first worked to open the new facility to hold apparel and merchandise for football fans to peruse during the fall. The performance of a yet-to-be-defeated team doesn’t hurt either.
“The average of $5,000-worth of clothing sold at football games this season is record numbers, and sales have doubled since the Pyne Pavilion was built,” Burkett said.
The Pyne Pavilion was built in 2014 and opened just in time for last year’s football season. Heading into a huge weekend against conference foe Hope College, the Comet football team was 5-0, remaining undefeated at 6-0 after another win this past Saturday. And, with a string of victories behind the team, Burkett feels that the football team’s success is also helping the bookstore’s performance.
“…I’ve been here at the bookstore for nine years now, and the sales are directly impacted of [sic] how the football team does. When they’ve had no winning seasons before Coach Pifer, the sales just haven’t been as good. As they win more our sales get better,” Burkett said.
Sky-high sales don’t come without consequences, however. With apparel in such high demand, Burkett stated that it has been a struggle this season to keep up with maintaining inventory at both of her locations, though described this as a “great problem to have.” Customers just won’t be seeing an expansion of new clothing item options anytime this year.
“Right now we are just focusing on keeping up with the clothing we already have. We were ill-prepared for the blowout of clothing sold. I’ve been scrambling for re-orders which is a great problem to have: making sure we have enough Olivet gear for both locations,” Burkett said.