ARCHIVES | 2004

Web Sites Satisfy Late‑Night Campus Snack Attacks
By RACHEL METZ DEC. 2, 2004

ONE rainy night this fall, Krissy Canavan, a 21-year-old George Washington
University student, had a craving for Diet Dr Pepper and an ice cream sandwich. She
was loath to leave her friend's apartment -- or the couch, for that matter. So she went
online, and soon her soda and ice cream arrived at the door.
Campus Snacks, which has been delivering late-night snacks to George
Washington students since March 2003, is one of many such businesses started by
students to serve their peers. At the click of a mouse, they deliver items from freshly
baked cookies to tampons, often after most local businesses have locked up for the
night.
Unlike Pink Dot, a Web-based Southern California delivery service, and failed
dot-com services like Kozmo and Webvan, these companies focus on a fairly small
array of products and cater almost exclusively to a single college.
Those who have created the businesses say that using the Web cuts costs and
increases efficiency. They can find fellow students to act as Web developers for far
less than the cost of hiring a professional. With orders coming in through the Web
site, they avoid having to staff telephone lines, and there is no storefront to maintain.
Some of these companies -- CU Snacks, a late-night service at Columbia
University, and DormSnacks, a bulk-delivery grocer at Brown -- don't even take
cash. Instead, they let customers pay online using debit or credit cards.
"As far as efficiency goes, and economic efficiency, it's prime," said Brandon Arbiter,
20, a co-founder of CU Snacks.
 Gerry Hills, a University of Illinois professor and founder of the Collegiate
Entrepreneurs Organization, estimated that tens of thousands of college students are
running businesses of various sorts, at least half with a Web presence. The risk of
failure is low, as most college-run businesses start out as simple part-time
enterprises requiring less than $5,000 to get off the ground.
"The attitude of a lot of the students, a lot of these student entrepreneurs is, just
give it a go, see what happens, and if the response is not what they hoped for, so be
it; no big loss," he said.
Matthew Mandell is one recent college graduate banking on success. In March
2003 Mr. Mandell and a friend, Ed Cody, 22, started Campus Snacks at George
Washington University, just blocks from the White House.
The required capital was small -- about $1,000, from Mr. Mandell's savings and
a loan from his parents, which they spent on supplies like a few cases of soda, some
cookies, muffins and Vitamin Water, and some advertising brochures. Other online
student delivery services reported similar or even lower costs.
"It started as just one HTML basic page, started with a laptop my father lent me
and a freezer that my parents said, 'Yeah, you can borrow this because we don't need
it right now,"' Mr. Mandell said. "And it's grown far beyond that."
Now the service carries close to 50 different drinks and around 30 types of ice
cream and other novelties, as well as cigarettes, frozen foods and some pharmacy
items. Products are stored in a nearby off-campus office.
Delivery people, who are paid by the hour, wait at Campus Snacks' office for
orders to come in, then make deliveries by bicycle.
It's an easy way for students to get snacks "because stores close kind of early
around here -- well, early for a student's time schedule," said Ms. Canavan, the Diet
Dr Pepper customer.
The Internet has been an integral part of Campus Snacks from the start. Orders
by phone are accepted, but most come in through the Web site, Mr. Mandell said.
For certain items like condoms, the anonymity afforded by ordering online may have
added appeal.
Campus Snacks' prices are a bit higher than those local retailers charge, but Mr.
Mandell pointed out that there is no minimum order size and delivery is free.
Unlike the George Washington service, CU Snacks, which started on Oct. 14 at
Columbia, is financed and owned by the university it serves. Last year, Mr. Arbiter
 and a fellow student, Jordan Davis, 21, submitted their business plan for CU Snacks
to a Columbia entrepreneurial contest and emerged as runners-up. As their prize,
the university's Center for Career Education made a $1,000 grant to start their
service.
So far, business is booming, Mr. Arbiter said. One advantage over other delivery
services, he said, is that because their delivery people are all students, they can bring
snacks right to students' dorm doors. In secure student housing like Columbia's,
students typically have to go to the building entrance to accept such items.
On the first night, CU Snacks received about 25 orders for products like soda,
juice and chips. Now they're getting 30 to 50 each night, he said, a step up from his
first business venture as a third grader, selling decal tattoos and slap bracelets.
Monica Betancourt, a 20-year-old Columbia student, has used CU Snacks about
10 times so far and thinks its popularity will grow. "I think it's definitely something
that was lacking on campus," she said.
For students at the University of Texas in Austin, however, the munchie niche
has been filled since 1999. That was when Leon Chen, 25, and his friend Tiffany
Taylor, 25, started Tiff's Treats, a service that delivers freshly baked cookies daily
until about midnight.
At first, the Internet didn't play a big part in their business, Mr. Chen said, but
now he believes that without a Web presence it wouldn't have survived. Internet
orders make up 30 percent of the total orders, but Mr. Chen expects they will
increase.
"My parents probably would never have ordered online, and they probably
wouldn't now," he said. "But the college students today -- it's easy for them, and
they've done it before, and it's something expected."
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A version of this article appears in print on December 2, 2004, on Page G00005 of the National edition
with the headline: Web Sites Satisfy Late­Night Campus Snack Attacks.

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