There are no setup fees, member fees or listing fees. We only collect a 10% commission on each sale to cover the cost of managing the platform.

To join the Alma Market, you must be a UIUC alum, student or Champaign-Urbana local business. To become a vendor, you must submit an application. Once your application is reviewed and approved, you’re in!

At this time, the Alma Market is focused on offering apparel, art, food, home goods, U of I memorabilia and personal care products. That doesn’t mean we can’t or won’t add more product categories in the future; it just might take us a little longer to create them. 

Please also note that, at this time, we are only accepting listings for physical goods; digital products and services can’t be sold on the Alma Market. We apologize for any inconvenience!

In addition to the above, please keep the following requirements in mind:

1. No products may promote violence in any way.
2. No products, including vintage, may include the Chief Illiniwek mascot or likeness.
3. Only vendors officially licensed by the University of Illinois may list products utilizing the U of I logo.
4. You may not create an Alma Market listing for the purpose of sharing a referral code, posting a wanted ad, or similar activity that does not offer a physical or digital item for sale.
5. If you are using photographs of previous work with options for customization (like color choices) included in the listing, it must be clear in your description that the photos shown are just examples.
6. Bear in mind that members may flag listings that appear to violate our policies for the Alma Market team’s review. The Alma Market team may remove any listings that violate our policies and may also suspend or terminate your account for any violations. Vendors whose accounts are suspended or terminated will still be held responsible for fulfilling any outstanding orders and paying any outstanding fees.

In general, please ensure that any products you list on the Alma Market are family-friendly and in keeping with the spirit of the University of Illinois and Alumni Association. We kindly ask you to use your best judgment when listing products and help us keep the Alma Market a welcoming place for all alumni to shop!

Once you submit your application and your account is approved by the Admin, you can refer to our series of six training videos to help onboard you to the site features and functionality. The total run time is approximately 20 minutes. A link to the videos can be found here. We’ve also put together a vendor training deck that you can find here. 

The Alma Market uses Shopify and Webkul’s Multivendor Marketplace integration to help vendors easily manage their shop. We chose Shopify because it’s the gold standard for simple and secure ecommerce solutions, and most customers will already be familiar with the user interface, making for a smoother buying experience.

No, it’s not required—but it could save you some time. If you already have a Shopify store, you can export a CSV file containing all of your product information. You can then import that CSV to automatically populate your Alma Market storefront. You can also manually sync your products to manage your inventory. You can read more about the process in the set-up guide here.

We think you’ll find most of your questions answered by our vendor training materials (videos & deck). Once you’ve registered to become a vendor, you’ll have access to a comprehensive onboarding deck, as well as a series of short training videos walking you through the site features and functionality. 

If you still have questions not covered here or in the training materials, feel free to send an email to almamarket@skoogco.com–we’ll be happy to help!

The University has had its own retail licensing program for more than 35 years. Only licensed vendors are allowed to produce merchandise branded with University of Illinois trademarks. Vendors on Alma Market must also become official licensees of the University of Illinois if they wish to produce merchandise for sale that has school trademarks on them. Note that if products are not branded with logos, or are only created in the colors orange and blue, then these products would not need to be licensed.

Any term, word, name or logo commonly associated with the University of Illinois or used to reference the University of Illinois could be considered a trademark. This includes words including but not necessarily limited to: Illinois, Illini, Fighting Illini, U of I, etc. Logos such as the Block I are also considered protected trademarks.

Selling your products on the Alma Market means tapping into a network of nearly half a million U of I alumni across the world, greatly expanding the reach of your business. You’ll benefit from events, emails, direct mail and other forms of advertising driving alumni to the Alma Market, where they’ll be exposed to your products. Think of it as built-in marketing!