INC NEWS - Duke Card has merchants singing blues (Sunday Herald-Sun)

[Melissa Rooney]

I forwarded the Duke Card article to my neighborhood
listserv and encouraged people to write President
Brodhead if they support this initiative, especially
if they are Duke Alumni. I agree that increasing the
off-campus visibility and business of Duke Students
would be great for Durham...and for the students, who
should be encouraged to venture into the world beyond
the campus walls...they're going to have to sooner or
later :)

Do you think it would be worth starting an e-mail
petition of Durham residents...I'm not sure how to do
that, exactly. But it's an idea.

Cheers,
Melissa Rooney
Fairfield Neighborhood




--- John Schelp <bwatu at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Duke Card blues: Merchants want rules eased for
> using
> student card to buy off campus
> by Anne Krishnan, Herald-Sun, 13 November 2005   
> 
> The way John Schelp sees it, Duke University is an
> island of 11,000 credit-card holders who eat, drink
> and shop with currency that most off-campus
> businesses
> can't accept. 
> 
> "It's a captive audience you have on campus," he
> said.
> 
> 
> That's why Schelp and some merchants are calling on
> the university to make it easier for local
> businesses
> to accept Duke Cards, the debit and meal card that's
> generally regarded as the standard currency on
> Duke's
> campus. 
> 
> "That's almost the only thing you take out of your
> wallet all week," said Ian Long, a sophomore English
> major from California. 
> 
> But Duke requires off-campus merchants to spend
> $1,200
> in initial set-up costs and pay an 18 percent
> commission to be able to accept the Duke Card.
> What's
> more, only restaurants can participate and they have
> to deliver food to campus to take advantage of the
> program. 
> 
> While 15 restaurants, 11 of them locally based, have
> signed on to the plan since 1990, Schelp, president
> of
> the Old [West] Durham Neighborhood Association, has
> heard others complain that the costs are
> prohibitive. 
> 
> "It's just too much," he said. 
> 
> He's pressing Duke President Richard Brodhead and
> Executive Vice President Tallman Trask to make the
> system easier and cheaper. Trask agreed to review
> the
> program, and Schelp expects to hear from him on
> Friday, a month from their last conversation. 
> 
> But Schelp isn't just looking for financial
> concessions; he also wants to see Duke allow all
> sorts
> of merchants to accept the Duke Card for both on-
> and
> off-campus sales. 
> 
> "This is good for Duke, it's good for town-gown
> relations and it's good for students," he said.
> "It's
> a win-win-win." 
> 
> Duke is conducting a financial and legal analysis of
> its existing program, spokesman John Burness said.
> He
> wouldn't specify what aspects of the program might
> be
> tweaked. 
> 
> "We have a variety of different options and no
> conclusions yet," he said last week. "Our goals in
> making whatever changes might come about are to
> provide greater convenience to our students while
> helping to encourage existing businesses closest to
> the campus to thrive." 
> 
> Students spend about $3 million a year on food
> purchases from the 15 restaurants that deliver to
> campus as part of the Duke Card program, Burness
> said.
> 
> 
> "The feedback [from those businesses] is
> overwhelmingly positive," he said. Many vendors have
> told Burness' colleagues that "if they didn't have
> this relationship with the Duke Card program, they
> wouldn't be in business," he said. 
> 
> Jimmy John's Sandwich Shops, which just started
> accepting the Duke Card and delivering to campus
> this
> year, is reaping the benefits, said manager Tone
> Gould. Half of the Ninth Street restaurant's sales
> come from Duke Card purchases, he said. 
> 
> Likewise, Pop's Trattoria has been accepting the
> Duke
> Card since August. Even though the cost of the
> program
> is high, the extra business is still a benefit, said
> Matthew Bason, who owns the Peabody Place restaurant
> with chefs Chris Stinnett and John Vandergrift. 
> 
> The order volume is currently low enough that it
> doesn't require any extra staff, and students using
> the Duke Card aren't taking up seats that would
> otherwise be occupied by diners paying all their
> money
> to Pop's, he said. 
> 
> "We're not losing business based on it, and the
> business gained is business we didn't have before,"
> Bason said. "For us, what the Duke Card offers is a
> little bit of an extra bonus to any night's
> business."
> 
> 
> Pop's currently is filling four or five orders each
> night through Gourmet Dining and Bakery, an Internet
> service developed by Duke students that takes the
> orders and delivers the food to campus. Five of
> GDB's
> 11 participating restaurants accept the Duke Card;
> the
> others accept payment by credit card only. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Blue Corn Café supports Duke, but its
> business is strong enough that it doesn't need to
> accept the Duke Card and pay the corresponding high
> commission, said owners Danielle and Antonio Rios.
> The
> restaurant's margins are tight enough without having
> to give a cut to the university, they said. 
> 
> The financial requirements aren't the only reason
> restaurants don't participate. Fowler's Food and
> Wine
> co-owner William Simpson would be happy to pay the
> commission if dealing with Duke weren't so
> difficult,
> he said. 
> 
> "We love Duke students and we'd love to be able to
> offer the card," he said. "But finding the right
> person who can make the right decision -- we've run
> into logistical problems." 
> 
> The Regulator Book Shop also doesn't take Duke
> Cards,
> but that doesn't stop students from trying to use
> them
> there, said co-owner John Valentine. 
> 
> "Students always ask if we take Flex cards," he
> said.
> "They assume we do, but the tariff Duke charges is
> too
> steep." 
> 
> The Regulator sells textbooks for 150 courses and
> also
> has a good relationship with Duke's athletic
> department, Valentine said. Still, he'd be happier
> if
> it were easier for students to spend money at his
> store. 
> 
> "With or without Duke, we will survive, but the more
> Duke we can have, the better," he said. 
> 
> The perception has always been that the university
> replicates the community's good ideas on campus so
> that students have no reason to leave, Valentine
> said.
> But Ninth Street also must make itself an attractive
> alternative to Duke so students will venture out to
> nearby stores and restaurants, he said. 
> 
> Long, who visits Ninth Street about once a week to
> eat
> or shop at The Regulator, said he leaves campus more
> often than many of his classmates. Local businesses
> shouldn't have to accept the Duke Card to draw
> students to the surrounding areas, he said, but he
> acknowledged it would be an effective marketing
> strategy. 
> 
> "People feel really comfortable in the Duke bubble
> and
> aren't as willing to get off onto Ninth Street as
> they
> should be," he said. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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