The Hill

I live on campus at UCI (my bf is a graduate student here) so every now and then, I visit this bookstore when I’m trying to kill some time.
The selection of items is amazing. I fall in love with all the women’s apparel. I don’t even go to this school and I wear UCI everything because the clothes are so cute.
Sometimes I bring my dog into the store (I carry her) and the staff is so friendly to me. Everyone wants to pet her and the staff make an effort to talk to me. I really like that.
You guys are crazy with your prices though. Too bad I fall in love with all your merchandise though and I can’t find it anywhere else.

The quality of college apparel has gone up since I attended!
Where I work we have college days where we rep our universities.
I’ve found multiple shirts and even a letterman style jacket that are perfect for work!
The Hurley Anteater zip front sweatshirts are massively more comfortable than the old college pullover hoodie I used to wear back in the day.
They also sell camelbak reusable water bottles which is perfect for work since they do not provide water at my site. I fill the camelbak with Brita filtered water at home and am set for the work day. The new circular mouth top is way easier to use than the old bite valve model. After biting a bite valve for 8 hours every time you’re thirsty your teeth would hurt. The new pour style is much better.
Also a great place to buy gifts for the parents that show school spirit :)

Its been four years since I visited the UCI bookstore, I had trouble finding the Unilocal site since they changed the name to the hill. It is much nicer than when I went to UCI during my undergrad years. They have opened up the layout and added a lot of name brand products. When I went they were having a sale on UCI tshirts for $ 9.99 each. I picked up a couple and bought a new UCI umbrella since my other one had recently bit the dust. There are no text books upstairs, only downstairs. Upstairs is primarily UCI clothing, they have some cute UCI hello kitty shirts. The staff is helpful and when I went during the summer there were no lines. I would definitely stop by here in the future to see what cute things they have in stock and to stock up on some UCI gear.

I came here with my brother to purchase a 13″ MacBook Pro (no retina display) which are better priced than the items at the actual Apple store. Though both offer educational discounts, the Hill’s apple laptops are priced $ 200 lower than those for sale at the Apple stores. I also received a $ 100 gift card for The Hill with the purchase. The computer store associate was very helpful in explaining the differences between models and worked with me as we split the total between separate bank accounts. Awesome customer service!
I used to go to UCI and The Hill (former bookstore) is very nicely renovated and organized compared to a few years ago.
The I docked a star because accessories and smaller items can be overpriced. I’d definitely come back to purchase my larger items like computers, laptops and etc.
Cheers!

I have been a customer at The Hill at UCI since I began attending, but after my recent experience with some of the lazy and incompetent staff I will be taking business elsewhere. After placing an order on 1-​10-​2014 and five visits to the store to pick up my order, only on the fifth visit did the staff tell me that my order has been canceled. Their cancellation notice does not work, as there was no notice of cancellation sent to my e-​mail as the tech center informed me on my fifth visit. Now being out of stock is completely understandable, but what is not is your employees’ negligence to actually check the order rather than just tell the customer that it’s not ready yet with refusals to call a manager. This customer service is unacceptable and I hope they get better customer service soon. Until then, order from another site, The Hill is more expensive for convenience, without that you are paying more for poor service.

Every college bookstore is expensive for textbooks, that’s why you use Amazon or Chegg. But not every bookstore is as well supplied in chocolate or gifts like The Hill.
At UCI, we don’t have only Hershey’s or other crrrrrraaaappppyyy chocolate, we carry the dark (and milk, calm down), organic, fair trade kind! Did you forget it was your mom’s birthday, don’t have a car or time before you leave back home for the weekend? Stop at The Hill! They carry plenty of cute, funny or upscale (Papyrus) cards. Oh and for that bottle of wine, they’ve got the long skinny gift bags (not to mention UCI wine glasses)!
The Hill also has intermittent sales. Use them to your advantage! I received about $ 30 off an iPad. You know the apple store doesn’t dole out discounts like that!
UCI in general, is the bomb. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that our bookstore is one of the best. Zot Zot for life!

All I can say… they definitely UPGRADED.
It was not always like this and it is so much nicer. They have better products but I felt that the store lacked some variety. Obviously, the new…“keep calm and zot on” or the hello kitty products are cool… but would I actually wear it? Also, does UCI have a football team? It was weird to see shirts that represented a football team that I believe to be non existent? Anyways, I enjoyed the upgrade. Organized and inviting!
–Zot on!

This review is based on an online order:
I ordered items on Wed, July 17 as I was traveling and needed items as a gift by July 27^th. I figured 10 days would be good enough. Placed order, standard shipping, received confirmation email. All good.
Well apparently not. On July 23^rd, I replied to my email asking what the status was. Not sure if anyone would respond, I called in the afternoon. When I called, I was told something along the lines of «yeah well we kinda forgot your order and 2 of the items you ordered are out of stock. let us know what you want to replace it with.» I was freaking out! I had just a few days for the items to reach me. I swapped out 2 items for other items and told the guy. I also told him I needed the items send via overmight with no additional charge to me as this was their error not mines.
They shipped out the items on July 24 and I did get them in time for my trip. The guy was nice and did not charge me the difference in the swapped out items. But they still charged the standard shipping.
I can’t seem to want to give them higher than a 3 star in the event that I never followed up on my order, it would never have gotten here and I would have been stuck.

Not the best campus bookstore I’ve been to, but definitely far from the worst.
The Hill has a nice selection of clothes, electronics, school supplies, and home goods. Books are definitely not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of The Hill, but that doesn’t bother me at all because they do also have a nice selection of books. Not just course books, but books of other genres too.
Service here is pretty standard as far as student-​run bookstores go. Better than some places, but not the best. What was a little weird the last time I came here (when I needed to pick up my ID card), the card printer stopped working. Well, let me back up a sec. I needed to take my picture first. I stood at the «X» as instructed. Turns out, I needed to be about 6″ forward and a few steps to the right. And the camera is up by the ceiling. What the heck? I would change the position of the «X», and make the camera eye level to facilitate the process. Anyway, then the printer broke. Took about 20min to get it to work. I didn’t mind the malfunction though since I got to browse through the books a bit.
Lines go fast though, and the place is *somewhat* organized.

As a worker here, I have the «ins» and «outs» of the store and although many criticize the store’s changes, I actually don’t see much difference other than more clothes and less books.
Working in the Coursebooks department, I help lots of customers with their needs in the books for their classes and other materials like coursepackets.
Overall, the changes in the bookstore has allowed more merchandise to come and give more visitors more reason to come in and buy memorabilia!

The Hill must have be a lot nicer now than it was last year, because people supposedly complained about the bookstore… and I dont hear it around. The Hill is very clean, no one usually at the express checkout unless its the first week of the quarter. Clothes are always organized and tons of people working. Course material and textbooks are down the stairs, and I think after three weeks they sell books back to where they got it from. (something like that). I like to get things here but it’s so overpriced sometimes that it breaks my heart. But I still get the anyways because where else will you find UCI shirts? Just here…

I am a UCI alumni but that isn’t going to make me biased when reviewing the hill. The bookstore is run by mainly college students who are professional and helpful. They seem a little nervous when talking to you, but I figure that you’re a college student around 19 years old and working a huge store, it might be a little overwhelming. The only downside is that the cashier could’ve cared less. It looked like she was really tired, either from studying too hard or partying too hard. I would guess the latter based on how she smelled. Gotta love college.
There is a wider selection of alumni and UCI gear which I really appreciated. Unfortunately the prices are still pretty high but you get what you pay for. I came here for a textbook and they didn’t have it in stock, which I heard happens frequently. The gentleman who helped me was very nice and went out of his way to help, but he was limited in what he could do.

The Hill is the new name for the UCI Bookstore. If the last time you’ve been to the bookstore was a few months, a year ago, don’t expect the same bookstore as before.
PROS:
More merchandise. Good if you wear or gift alot of UCI gear. Nice to have more options.
Better quality. Everything just looks nicer. The store, the layout, the things they sell, the computer store look really nice as well.
Convenient Magazine area. I like reading magazines on my lunch break. It’s nice to have an area to sit and read them.
Author series. I really enjoy the seminars with the authors of different books. Keep them going!
Special sales. I usually only buy stuff here during those sales.
CONS:
I just don’t know where everything is. I’m used to the old layout so sometimes I spend a lot longer than usually trying to find things.
Less books… it’s a bookstore. I guess the library is where people get their books since they don’t have to pay for them. I guess that’s why they changed the name too?
Still pricey. Clothing is still a little out of my typical price range. I usually tend to window shop more than actually buy something, or wait for the sales.
They are really trying to update the bookstore into something more than a bookstore. I wonder what other changes they’ll make.