CQUniversity (CQU) is a regional university with campuses across Australia and flexible online study options. Its University Shop serves students, staff and other customers with textbooks, course uniforms, university merchandise, graduation gifts and everyday student and departmental requirements.
The shop manages nearly 10,000 SKUs and operates one physical store in North Rockhampton, alongside an online store that accounts for the majority of sales. The team also sells merchandise at graduation events and provides sizing ranges at selected campuses so students can check their fit before ordering online.
John Back, Software and Merchandise Developer at CQU, has spent 20 years in his role, having originally joined to establish its ecommerce operation. Today, a six-person team handles physical retail, ecommerce, marketing and product development. Neto by Maropost and Maropost Marketing Cloud support the shop’s retail operation and customer communications.
“It’s an easy out-of-the-box solution. It can quickly be tailored to what you specifically need, and the support’s fantastic.”
John Back, Software and Merchandise Developer
CQU
Challenge
The University Shop’s previous ecommerce system had become increasingly difficult to maintain. Its shopping cart interfaced with a separate POS and inventory system, while John had written the website’s front and back end himself. He had also built the email functionality used to manage audience lists and campaigns, alongside handling marketing and photography.
Active development on the old system had stopped years before the migration, and support was effectively unavailable. The team needed to replace both commerce and email functionality to keep the operation running.
“That was a critical part of our functionality,” says John. “We couldn’t survive without it.”
Solution
CQU chose Neto by Maropost alongside Maropost Marketing Cloud. For John, the appeal was having a ready-to-use foundation that could be implemented quickly and then adapted to the shop’s requirements.
“The biggest win for us is that it’s an off-the-shelf package. It’s something that you can buy and implement rapidly. And then you can iterate and tweak at the edges with it. But it works out of the box.”
John describes a positive onboarding experience. After planning and development work completed, the last implementation push was very quick. Availability of ongoing support was another major improvement after years with a system that was no longer actively developed.
“We got our implementation out very quickly. Probably took us about a month to go-live.”
“Maropost’s support staff and onboarding staff are phenomenal.”
Result
The University Shop now runs its commerce and email marketing on supported platforms, with:
“We were looking for a replacement for quite some time. It came down to Maropost in the end, which we were very happy with. The difference is night and day.”
Challenge
With nearly 10,000 SKUs, the University Shop needs to accommodate a varied product mix. Alongside textbooks, uniforms and merchandise, the physical store handles items such as food and beverages. The team needs products to be easy to locate at the counter and the flexibility to offer different ranges online and in store.
Solution
Neto POS mirrors the categories used on the website, with product images helping staff identify items. The team can choose which categories appear in POS and which appear online, rather than displaying the entire catalogue in both channels.
John gives the example of hot food, ready-to-take-away meals and canned drinks: these can be organised into categories for in-store sales without being displayed online. The reverse is also possible, with online-only products kept out of the POS interface.
“You can run cafe products directly out of Neto through the category system and have those SKUs only display in-store but not display online. And then you can have the reverse as well. You can have SKUs that only displays online that isn’t exposed in the point of sale.”
The online store also supports course-specific shopping. Custom interfaces let students look up their textbook requirements for each term and year, while other interfaces bring in product details from third parties. Course uniform ranges sit alongside university merchandise, graduation gifts and seasonal gift lines.
Result
Neto supports a catalogue of nearly 10,000 SKUs, while giving the team flexibility to manage different shopping experiences online and at the campus store:
“I’m not just using hyperbole. It really is amazing.”
“We have fast-to-find categories on the point of sale itself. Staff can dive down through the buttons on the POS to find what they need quickly and intuitively. It’s really good.”
Challenge
The University Shop communicates with distinct student, staff and subscriber audiences. Its annual email campaign volume had declined, and the team needed an easier way to deliver recurring communications alongside its other responsibilities.
Solution
Maropost Marketing Cloud lets John duplicate existing content and campaigns rather than repeat the same setup for every send. Once an email is ready, he can retain its custom footer, rename it and adapt the content for the next campaign. He then duplicates a previous campaign for the same audience list and updates it with the new content.
“The biggest win in there is the duplicate feature because it just makes everything so easy.”
John also creates campaign-specific product recommendations, drawing products from the shop’s live database into emails so recipients can click through to the relevant items. This brings the product catalogue into promotional communications.
The team currently targets separate student, staff and subscriber lists. High-level analytics give John visibility across campaigns, helping him see what is working and investigate issues quickly.
Result
In 11 months using Maropost Marketing Cloud, the University Shop:
For a small team balancing marketing with ecommerce and physical retail, the ability to restore campaign activity is a significant benefit.
“It’s actually returning to the same amount of campaign emails that we were doing previously. So it’s enabled us to rebuild capacity without increasing the workload, essentially.”
A Black Friday reminder email sent to 689 recipients recorded nearly $10,000 in revenue in Maropost Marketing Cloud’s campaign report, giving the team a concrete example of how email supported its seasonal promotion. John used product recommendations within the emails to connect recipients with relevant products from the University Shop’s catalogue.
CQUniversity’s Black Friday reminder campaign results in Maropost Marketing Cloud, November 2025.
Supporting students and staff remains central to the University Shop’s purpose. John notes that much of its activity is service provision, so growth within those audiences is linked to the size of the university community.
Alumni represent a potential opportunity to reach a wider audience. John has been working with the Maropost team and the university’s alumni team to develop that audience for future marketing.
“That would potentially be another segment for us to grow on.”
The shop is also gradually working towards more of a physical presence at other campuses, alongside its online store and graduation-event activity. With Neto by Maropost supporting retail and Maropost Marketing Cloud making campaigns easier to deliver, the team has a foundation for that next stage.