Quirks Consignment Store has received a warm welcome from the MU family since its opening at the beginning of the semester.
Located in the Student Center, Quirks sells a wide variety of creations made by students, from handmade jewelry to customized canvases.
Quirks CEO Zach Beattie said the business is fueled by “fun, creativity and good times.”
“It is unique, it is ever-changing, it’s welcoming,” Beattie said. “It’s a very relaxed, chill atmosphere.”
Beattie, along with seniors Natalie Cheng, Devin Kelsey and Kate Gallagher, is a founder and co-owner of Quirks. The four came together last year and crafted the idea for the consignment store.
Cheng said the four creators of Quirks wanted to promote a kind of visibility of the art culture at MU and also showcase different talents of students.
“A lot of consignment stores are downtown (and) are for the community, and there’s nothing wrong with that, that’s obviously really great, but we wanted to do something that was showing off what Tigers can do,” Cheng said. “And so we really wanted to focus on trying to foster entrepreneurship on campus.”
Kelsey said Quirks already has more than 70 students who sell their items through the store.
“If you come in on any random day there’s always something different going on,” Beattie said. “People are always dropping off new items, so almost every day we have a drop off of something new. So if you come in, you’re almost always going to see something that you haven’t seen before, which is something we really like.”
Beattie said the company’s founders try to come up with fun promotional ideas, like bringing in a parking ticket or winning a game of corn hole against an employee in order to receive a discount.
“We have more in the works, like bring in a test you got an A on and you’ll get a discount, stuff like that,” Beattie said. “We try to keep it unique and fresh. We’re thinking about doing buy a mug and you get free coffee, all kinds of stuff.”
Along with the fun atmosphere the employees have created, Quirks is also thriving when it comes to business.
“From a business standpoint it’s going really well,” Cheng said. “We didn’t really go into it wanting to make a ton of money or get rich off of it or anything. But we’re more than satisfied with how people appreciate the store, the products and what people are making.”
Kelsey said the engagement Quirks maintains with customers is what sets the store apart from other places around MU.
Cheng said people like coming into the store and just hanging out.
“We love talking to people, meeting different people at the university we never knew before,” Cheng said. “Our friends come in and I think it makes it a really good environment to enjoy the company of other students and appreciate what they do.”
Kelsey said having fun is an important goal of Quirks. He said there’s no way full-time students could commit to running a business if it wasn’t a good time.
“We want to keep this fun throughout the year,” Kelsey said. “We want to keep coming up with new ideas where people think, ‘What are they going to think of next?’ We’ve done a fairly good job of that so far and we plan on keeping that up.”
