Kahuku scores with online store

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward O'ahu Writer

Kahuku High School T-shirts are hot. And so is the school's online shopping site, which has grossed $65,000 since it went up in August.

Kahuku High School sophomore Ericka Staples, 15, who helped found the school Web site, calls up Kahuku.org, with some of the online store merchandise in the background. T-shirts have been the biggest sellers. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

Building on the school's back-to-back state football championships and selling to people from just down the street to as far away as Japan, Australia and England, Kahuku.org has sold 5,500 items, mostly T-shirts, far surpassing the $7,000 fund-raising effort for the previous year, said Janine Brand, volunteer manager.

"I'm told by our T-shirt vendor that he sells us 10 times more T-shirts in Kahuku" than at other high schools, Brand said.

About 80 percent of the profit from the site, which operates in conjunction with an on-campus shop, goes directly back to the school to pay for programs and activities.

The remainder pays for running and developing the Web site and store. With sales predicted to reach $125,000 to $150,000 in its second year, the site could help offset a proposed 2 to 5 percent cut in the state education budget for Kahuku, marketing experts said.

Students came up with the idea for Kahuku.org, a combination cyber-sales and campus store operation. They manage the site with the help of adult volunteers. The start-up was paid for by the Ko'olauloa Educational Alliance Corp. with $30,000 in grants from the Ho'oponopono Ko'olauloa Community Foundation.

Surprised by the booming business, Brand attributed the success to several factors, including the school's football championship two years in a row, marketing efforts to Kahuku alumni and fans, and obtaining an exclusive license for the Kahuku logo and various slogans.

Those components worked together to bring in the revenue, Brand said, adding that the Web site made a big difference.

"If we were selling to the community without the Web site, we would not have been as successful," she said.

The operation has impressed observers.

"In today's world of dwindling state revenue and lack of ability to raise taxes to support programs in this environment, it's wonderful to see this entrepreneurship taking off at the high school level to support the athletic and academic programs," said Dana Alden, a University of Hawai'i professor of marketing. "It's even better that the kids are running it."

Alden said it helps that the site is easy to find and navigate.

At the e-store, browsers can buy Kahuku High bumper stickers, baseball caps, back scratchers, water bottles or ceramic poi pounders handcrafted by Kahuku art students. The popular T-shirts go for $10 to $20 each.

The Web site also serves as a school and community information center where visitors can sign up for e-mail alerts, visit an archive of Kahuku newspaper articles and press releases or send a Spirit of Kahuku e-postcard.

In conjunction with e-commerce, the school initiated a directed studies class called Entrepreneurship 101 where students learn to run a business by operating the Web site and store. Students pack and ship items from the store, said school principal Lisa DeLong.

"The class is run like a business meeting," DeLong said, adding that students are assigned such tasks as marketing, financing, buying and Web management.

The class is run by volunteer Lowell Hussey, who has a master's degree from Harvard Business School, owned two wireless companies and was senior vice president of Time Warner.

"We want the students to be fully in charge of the Web site, and Lowell is the business manager overseeing the students," DeLong said.

Ericka Staples, 15, a founding member of the Web site, said the project is providing her with job experience and real-world knowledge that she wouldn't get in a regular classroom.

"It's really exciting to be part of something you create and to see how it succeeds," said Staples, a sophomore.

With Kahuku.org, students must solve problems, analyze products and make decisions that will affect their profit margin, said Jeff Bloom, president of the Computer Training Academy in Honolulu. The knowledge they obtain will help them in the future, Bloom said.

"The more the kids build something that is real-world, the more the experience will stay with them," he said.

Brand said the education alliance wants to share its concept with other schools.

"It is a program that is very exciting and very adaptable to other schools," Brand said.

As successful as the Web site is, Hussey said he and the students are working to develop other marketing strategies and products.

The site has about 1,000 subscribers who sign up to receive news about Kahuku High. The list is used for promotions only sparingly, Hussey said. Instead, e-mail subscribers receive such things as updates on games during football season. Recently, they were told their names would be automatically entered into a free drawing for two airline tickets and accommodations in Honolulu for the football doubleheader Sept. 21, when Kahuku and Saint Louis High School will play top Mainland schools Long Beach Poly and De La Salle.

Hussey said he also is exploring the idea of making the Kahuku Red Raiders "America's High School Team" by getting small schools that don't have a football team to adopt the Red Raiders.

Noted Hawai'i photographer Kim Taylor Reece recently agreed to allow the school to sell his artwork on its site. The photographs will be the first nonschool products offered, and more products will be solicited, Hussey said.

He predicts the site and bookstore together will gross $125,000 to $150,000 in its second year. "I can see us becoming the retail outlet to the world for a lot of North Shore products," he said.

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.