Merchandise for the LSU Tigers, Southern Jaguars, Tulane Green Wave and local high schools can easily be found at local retail outlets. But red, blue and gray Nicholls paraphernalia seems to be often missing from the clothes racks and shelves. “I’ve seen some Nicholls stuff around town, but not much of it lately,” Angelle Caillouet, University bookstore manager, said. “They definitely don’t carry as much as one would think with Nicholls being so close.”
The majority of Nicholls products, including T-shirts, sweaters, mugs, stickers, license plates and other items can only be purchased from the University bookstore. All Nicholls merchandise is licensed by the University, which receives 7 percent royalties on every item sold. Any retail outlets can sell Nicholls products.
Caillouet said product sales at the bookstore have increased by more than 35 percent during the past year, specifically items sporting the athletic logo, an “N” with a saber piercing it.
“We have seen a major increase in sales, especially with women’s clothing,” Caillouet said. “People tend to prefer the athletic logo over the new University logo because many students don’t understand what it means.”
Because merchandise sales have increased, it has many people wondering why more local retail outlets do not seem to carry as much Nicholls items as they do for other schools.
Kerry Bean, co-manager for Wal-Mart Super Center in Thibodaux, said his store limits what Nicholls merchandise they sell to avoid competition with the University bookstore.
“Sometimes, we just don’t want to hurt the school’s chance to generate revenue any way they can,” said Bean, whose store has sold Nicholls clothing occasionally and is currently selling Nicholls baseball caps with the new University logo. “We could carry more stuff, but we don’t want to hurt the school.”
Wal-Mart, along with other vendors, also has licensing restrictions from the product manufacturers limiting what they can sell, how much they can sell and when they can sell.
Because of start-up fees on all sales, vendors must order a certain quantity of merchandise – a number that can sometimes be too large for the store to profit from. The vendor can order less than the required minimum, but excessive fees will be added. The merchandise would become more expensive than buying the set quantity.
“We have to ask ourselves, do we need to order 360 T-shirts or mugs?” Bean explained. “Can I sell those items quickly enough to profit from it? I can order anything, but I wouldn’t be able to sell that many at a reasonable price for the customer.”
While Bean said the requests for Nicholls items have increased, he said Wal-Mart has had difficulty selling Colonel items in the past. Bean said success in sports seems to boost sales for any school. That’s the main reason for the explosion in LSU merchandise sales during the past three months.
“When you are national champions in college football, everyone wants to associate with you. It’s big for the state of Louisiana,” Bean said. “But I think the community is proud of Nicholls State and hopefully we’ll start seeing more stuff coming in and made available soon. We’ll start to carry more items other than just clothes.”
Emily Speihler, freshman from Baton Rouge, said she bought a “comfortable” pair of Nicholls sweatpants at Wal-Mart last year, but she feels the items should be sold all the time, not just on occasion.
“I understand they have licensing requirements and problems with demand, but I think it all comes down to a lack of school pride and spirit from the community,” she said. “Thibodaux just doesn’t seem to support us like other cities support their schools. The high schools here seem to get more attention than us. That needs to change.”
At the Wal-Mart in Lake Charles, McNeese State clothing takes up two full racks, the same as LSU. K-Mart in Lake Charles sells Cowboy plastic drinking bottles and stickers.
