3. Overview of NTU, NCCU and NTNU University Gift Shop
From the surveys and interviews from the gift shops of these three universities, many interesting viewpoints are articulated. The information gathered can be concluded as following:
3.1 NTU gift shop review
With regards to the points of sales in NTU, its first point of sale is the NTU Press Bookstore (臺大出版中心), a shop solely organized by the university press center. The next one is Coolcode studio x NTU gift store （臺大酷鎷創意工坊）locates on the second floor of activity hall number two. This gift shop is fully managed by third party, in other word, it is operated as the third party’s own store or sole agent. The shop operators are granted formal authorization from NTU to launch, produce and design new products, all of which NTU will inspect the quality before actual manufacturing process. In addition, NTU also earns authorization premium from the sales by portion of percentage. Furthermore, Cool studio also has premium service to serve students who need to design new products such as T-shirt cap or other grocery for their department. The last point of sale of NTU is Café trouvé (找到好東西) or Good Good coffee shop, which is a premium coffee shop near the west gate of NTU. This place used to be a car park exit at west gate of NTU, after renovation in late 2014, the building named “new platform” （新月臺）was built and metallic-styled coffee shop was
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windows, round-shaped windows and a narrow aisle resembling the corridor in a boat, making the customers feel as if they were traveling in a boat. The shop has two stories. The first floor is a coffee and groceries shop which sells postcard, hoodies, bags, and so on. From its price range, it can be observed that this shop positions itself as a premium coffee shop, for examples coffee is 180 NTD per cup and salad is approximately 200 NTD per bowl. In addition, it also has a small walking path linking to the cooperative store of NTU at the back of the store. The second floor is a restaurant that goes by the name “Café trouvé”. However, the main purpose of this cafe is to serve premium coffee and food for its customers, without distributing any NTU products in their store. Nevertheless, this shop has high potential to become a coffee and NTU gift shop business model in the future. One interesting promotion of this place is that there is 15 per cent discount for NTU students when purchasing food or beverages for take-away.3.2 NTNU gift shop review
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) has a long history in the field of education, arts, creativity, Chinese language and literature, with abundant researching resources. In order to effectively integrate each unit in the school, to build solid foundation for the development of resources, to encourage scholarly publishing, and to establish a vision of academic status, the NTNU Publishing Center (出版中心) has been built in the basement of the library. This place houses valuable resource and develops various types of new products and new services. Its main responsibilities include planning, editing, and printing NTNU publication, as well as other related operations with regards to books, flyers, publications and other media of NTNU.
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More importantly, it is also in charge of building the “NTNU” (師大) brand through various marketing channels.
Publishing Center’s functions are as following:
1. Publishing function: Responsible for the publication, edition and distribution of school’s paper and digital publications, information bank and teaching materials.
2. Sound publishing function: Responsible for the publication and sale of compact discs, tapes, and records.
3. Wholesale/retail function: Responsible for the distribution of educational materials, musical instruments, and recreational supplies: the distribution of books and stationery, as well as school souvenirs, arts and creative products, multimedia and other commodities.
4. Intellectual property/trademark functions: Responsible for the purchase and sale of patents, trademarks, economic rights and other intangible assets. The center also manages asset evaluation and other licensing-related business.
With regards to the NTNU souvenir manufacturing and distribution, the Publishing Center does the long-term plan for designing and selling of NTNU creative products and souvenirs, as well as planning for NTNU brand building in the future, with the utmost goal of making a breakthrough in university’s publication industry.
Therefore, the main upstream of NTNU gift shops comes from two places. First, the gift shop corner in the NTNU library, with the operating size of approximately 12 square meters. It is an open-space gift shop (Figure 6) locating on the left side of NTNU front gate. The people
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who pass by can see the shop from glass windows on the first floor of the library. It is operated by one part-time student. Also, there is a coffee stall outside the library, with around 10 tables in the open-air area. Second is the Wen Huei hall, which was partly destroyed by fire accident in 1997 and closed for renovation from 2009 to May, 2011. This place is full of memories that are shared among people of NTNU and has become one of NTNU’s main attractions. Currently, Wen Huei Hall is a recreational space for students, offering a space for reading, drinking coffee and showcasing the university’s creative products.
Figure 6: NTNU Library gift shop.
Source: Survey (April 2015)
Table 2: The point of sale from each university gift shop
University Number of shops Name of shops
NCCU 1 1.) Alumni Center
NTU 3 1.) NTU Press Bookstore (臺大出版中心)
2.) Coolcode studio x NTU gift store
（臺大酷鎷創意工坊）