Jacob Nolan saw the need for cheap, accessible groceries, especially among freshmen and sophomores with limited means to get off campus.

Now he and two other Syracuse University students will try to address that need through an online campus grocery delivery service called My Campus Groceries. The service, which launched at midnight Monday, allows students to make grocery orders online and have Wegmans groceries delivered to them.

‘We’re hoping to make this a real campus service and build a relationship with students,’ said Nolan, a freshman marketing, entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises, and supply chain management major who had the initial idea for MyCampusGroceries.com. ‘We’re focusing on customer service and making it enjoyable.’

Nolan and Lauren Sanfilippo, a freshman finance major, created the website through E-commerce’s Web-hosting service, using less than $100 of personal funding to cover startup costs.

Nolan and Sanfilippo, with help from sophomore entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major Harley Dalton, will run the entire operation. That includes going to Wegmans, buying the groceries and delivering them to customers beginning on Sunday. Students could begin ordering groceries at midnight.

Nolan and his partners will deliver groceries on Sundays, and students can make food orders until each Saturday at midnight. Students must create a personal My Campus Groceries account to make orders on the website, which includes categories such as dairy, fruits and vegetables, snacks and beverages. When students are ready to check out, they can pay through a PayPal account and select a preferred delivery time on Sunday — any half-hour interval between 7 and 9 p.m.

The Martin J. Whitman School of Management trio will then deliver the groceries directly to students’ residences. The prices online will be the same as the prices in the store, but students will pay a flat $5 delivery fee in addition to the bill for each delivery.

My Campus Groceries is still growing and adding products to its interface. The website lists basic grocery items, such as milk, eggs, cereals, fruit, water and snacks like chips, granola bars and soda. The trio plans to expand options on the website in the future. Due to all the different products Wegmans offers, the website doesn’t fully list everything that can be ordered, Nolan said.

Customers use the ‘Contact Us’ tab on the website to ask for an item not listed, Nolan said, and it can be added to their order. The trio hopes students use the ‘Contact Us’ tool as much as possible so they can learn which items are most popular and needed while encouraging customer involvement, Nolan said.

‘We want it to be like your friends are doing you a favor and going to pick up a few things you need from the grocery store,’ Dalton said.

This is not the first grocery delivery service at SU. Adam Peruta, an SU graduate and associate professor of strategic communication at Ithaca College, started One Click Grocery in 2004, which he said he ran with two partners. They sold One Click Grocery after three years, but Peruta said he expanded his initial idea into a different business.

My Campus Groceries could also face competition from the Student Association’s Wegmans bus service, which starts at the end of the week. But Nolan said he believes the two services speak to different audiences.

‘All students have different preferences,’ Nolan said. ‘Some don’t want to wait in line and lug their groceries home when they have the option to have them delivered directly.’

The key to making the business successful is ensuring the staff stays dedicated to its customers and to one another, said Craig Watters, assistant professor of entrepreneurial practice in Whitman.

‘Dependability is a big challenge,’ Watters said. ‘Pulling together a staff that can do it is key.’

As more customers register, Nolan said he plans to add a feature that will allow students to choose backup grocery items in case their first-choice item isn’t available.

Stephanie Ricciardi, a sophomore communications design major, said she believes busy students who have no time to worry about their weekly food supply will benefit from the service.

‘For some people, the weekends are their only days to do homework. Getting groceries delivered saves you a trip, letting you focus on other things,’ Ricciardi said. ‘And for only $5 more? I think it’s worth it.’

vlpallad@syr.edu

 

 

 

 

Published on February 27, 2011 at 12:00 pm