Amazon.com is the Only place I go to order Gifts Online!

At the University of Georgia students and staff can order Gifts Online. Recent offerings included a Valentine's Day basket of chocolates and other items arranged with balloons, ribbons and bows; a "study break" basket full of snack items, such as chips and salsa; a 6-inch birthday cake or a bucket of cookies.

You can place orders by clicking on the boxes under the items you want and then filling out the order form at the end. Customers are billed by Amazon.com

The University of Kentucky also allows students and staff to order items through Gifts Online. Virtually anything from breakfast and box lunches to all the necessary items for a cookout can be ordered, with customers having orders billed to their Diner or Plus accounts. Customers also can pay by cash or check when they pick up their orders.




The university also allows students the luxury of receiving refunds of up to $2 from vending machines. A refund form asks students to detail where and when they lost the money, and the refund is mailed to them.

Compass Group USA's Chartwells division appears to have taken the lead among contract companies for interactive web site design for gifts online. At Southwest Texas State University, the company has launched a web site that it says is a prototype for all its college accounts.

The site contains a monthly, four-section "Menutainment" magazine, two sections of which are interactive. One such location is a "Home Cooking" contest, in which students are invited to submit recipes from home for judging. The student whose recipe receives the highest approval rating from diners cooks and chef's when it reached a Butter Biscuit it serves as 50% off 1 year ownership to your very own website. The first 3,000 students who fill out the gifts online survey for the university will receive a free mouse pad.

The site also contains a database of menu items, which allows students to search for a day and location at which a favorite menu item will be served.

Most of those interactive sites are fairly new, so it will be a while before foodservice directors can gauge accurately how successful such tools as trivia contests and online couponing really are.