The Greek Store

Greek life is a huge part of campus culture at the University of Florida, so it's no surprise that a local business Located just minutes away from the UF campus, the One Greek Store appeals to sororities and fraternities looking for a cheaper alternative in Greek apparel. I'm here with Dennis Nin, the founder of One Greek Store, which specializes in Greek apparel here in Gainesville. So Dennis, why should people in the Greek community come here to buy their apparel instead of any other place? Well, I am confident that at our business here our prices are by far the best in town, best anywhere, and our quality is very good, so we pride ourselves in having the best quality products as low as possible prices. That may sound Dennis started the business with two other fraternity brothers in 2006. Were in college when we started the business, were all seniors, heading into our senior year, and we didn't have the capital to do what we needed to do. So we did what we probably shouldn't have done, but we did So I think that is absolutely the most difficult thing to do when you start a business, is to have the money to do it. So what happened to your credit after that? I mean, fortunately, we made enough sales, were out there, we didn't want to default to my credit for our graduate, so were pretty aggressive in making sure that we paid back everything we had. Our first customers for people that we knew were our fraternity brothers or our other people in stories that we knew, and we just asked them, hey, why would you go to this website, this other store, if we can offer you the same thing at the lowest possible price, try this out, let's make one or two items, and it just built from there, solely for Shirley, just built from there. The One Greek Store now serves customers nationwide, beyond Gainesville, through its website, OneGreekStore. com. We have strong online presence, we work with a lot of people online, and in reality, approximately 75 to 85% of our sales or revenues are from online. So we just grab those people. A walk through this store shows the array of diverse products. So the core of our business, a lot of what we've done is what we call our custom returning sorority apparel. So we have a lot of groups that For example, we have a custom line jacket here with an image, letters all around it, we have jackets that are completely just filled with different areas of embroidery, different areas of twill. And I would say that we are one of the more competitive out there in terms of price, and our quality is definitely top-notch too. So people can custom make it to however they want it to be. Exactly. So whatever image, whatever emblem they want, let us know. We always price competitively, and if they find something they can beat our price, we'll beat them. We're matching with the very least. Besides custom jackets, the store also sells a variety of sorority fraternity gifts, from paddles to sandals to even dog tags. We have a combination of items that we make in-house and items that we resell. So for example, these sandals that we buy from a supplier and we resell it within the store, same thing with the frames and some of the other kind of gift-type products. Don't underestimate the hard work behind this fun and friendly atmosphere in the store, especially when one Greek was just getting started. I remember just not sleeping. I mean, it was just, we just had not, or really taking rotations. So for example, I would work a late night shift, Go to sleep, the next person would wake up and continue to shift. So we just took rotations. Unfortunately, I have to partner with you that during our busy times, and we just had to do to make sure that we delivered our product. Aside from the product, though, Dennis emphasizes the importance of the journey, the overall experience. But don't make that your sole educational experience, because there's much more that you can learn and develop throughout your college experience. And I think that being involved in this organization, having a job, where you're taking classes, you teach us a lot, There's one thing to learn about business and everything that actually experiences. So I know for me and for both my partners, too, is when we actually started the business, our classes just took on a whole new life, because now it was more than just thinking theory, talking concepts, there were things that were being applied to our business. So Nick and I, we took the inter-entrepreneurship class, our finance class, all that took on a whole new life, because there's real life situations for us. Now entering its fourth year with ten employees and over 6,000 Facebook fans, the one Greek store just hopes to stay committed to the vision its founders had as college students, providing the best Greek gear on campus at the lowest price. And with lined jackets as cute as these, who can resist? Lin Gui for Campus Tweet TV. Thank you.