UNT students receive scholarships from National Retail Federation

Monday, August 25, 2014 - 19:34

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- Two students in the University of North Texas College of Merchandising, Hospitality and Tourism each received $2,500 scholarships for being named semifinalists in the 2014 Ray M. Greenly Scholarship Competition sponsored by the National Retail Federation.

Khuyen Nguyen and Adriana Solis, both senior merchandising and digital retailing majors, were among 25 semifinalists in the competition. Their scholarships will allow them to attend the Annual Summit and Student Program of Shop.org, the digital retailing arm of the National Retail Federation. Sept. 29-Oct. 1 in Seattle.

The Greenly Scholarship Competition was established in 2006 and is named in honor of a longtime staff member of Shop.org. This year's competition was open to both undergraduate and graduate students regardless of major. In addition to completing a scholarship application, each student in the competition submitted two essays about his or her career aspirations and retail innovations and a case study for an online business that had to be creative and original.

Solis, from Sachse, Texas, submitted a plan to turn Method Seven Magazine, a biannual fashion magazine that she founded in 2012, into an Internet platform for e-commerce. The magazine is designed and produced by UNT students for the 18- to 25-year-old demographic, and uses UNT students as models. In November 2013, Solis and her partners on the magazine received $20,000 in seed money by winning the New Venture Creation Contest offered by the UNT Murphy Center for Entrepreneurship.

Nguyen, who is from Bien Hoa City, Vietnam, created an online business plan for Walmart to expand its existing e-commerce into an online grocery subscription model to stay competitive with Amazon. Under the plan, clients could place monthly orders of basic stock, such as non-perishable food and cleaning supplies, and may add extra items to each month's standing order. The clients could have the order delivered to their homes, or pick it up at one of the stores.

Both Nguyen and Solis will graduate from UNT in May 2015.

UNT News Service
News_Service@unt.edu
(940) 565-2108