Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

On July 15, Mizzou fans took over Busch Stadium to watch the Cardinals go up against the Marlins. This event was part of the launch of a new initiative to co-brand college sports with Major League Baseball. To celebrate the new licensing partnership, the staff at The Mizzou Store and New Era Caps offered Mizzou fans a chance to win two tickets to the game, a one-night stay in a St. Louis area hotel and three MU/Cardinals caps.

Once the last student in line has purchased their books and supplies for the new semester, investing the time for a little bit of assessment and proactive planning now can save you a lot of effort down the road.

Lilli Brooks, Corporate Marketing Representative, shares her experience from over a decade of helping college stores of all sizes tackle their individual challenges. Find out what she's learned about the importance of making connections and why it's essential to keep evolving:

Whether they know it or not, the faculty members at your school play a crucial role in the success of your business. By implementing a few savvy strategies, you can encourage helpful feedback, establish a routine of prompt adoptions and inspire devoted on-campus ambassadors.

Take a moment and visualize your typical customer.

On any given day, who would you expect to see walk through the door? Students, coming in to pick up books, supplies or a quick snack? Or, during slower times throughout the year, maybe you and your employees interact more with faculty or staff members, stopping in on their way to their offices or during a lunch break.

When you think of the word “registry,” what comes to mind? If you’re like most people, you associate gift registries with major life events like weddings or the arrival of a new baby. Registries are a convenient way to let loved ones know what items are needed without having to explicitly ask for them, which is why they work so well for those big rites of passage.

What do you do when you find yourself with an overabundance of a certain product? In most cases, you can either just send the surplus back or decide to get creative and find a way to make it work to your store’s advantage. That’s exactly the situation the staff at The Book Mark found themselves in, when they accidentally ordered over 300 candy bars from one of their vendors.

When faculty members submit their adoptions on time (or early), your students have more opportunities to save when they purchase their course materials the following term. To make it easier for you to communicate the important role your faculty play in the price of textbooks, we've rounded up a selection of the free resources we've created over the past couple of years. Browse the materials below and simply click on each image to download each item or set.

Three years ago, the staff at the Iowa State University Bookstore adopted a new strategy striving for “Excellence in Customer Service.” After evaluating their approach to the unique challenge of a store with a great deal of floor space, a large, diverse inventory and a broad range of different types of customers, they came up with a new platform for expectation for all UBS staff members.

Whether you’d like to clear out some inventory or showcase new products, hosting a “Swap & Shop” event is a great way to get your customers to come in and see what you have to offer. And it couldn’t be easier: all they have to do to receive a discount on new apparel is bring in their old, gently-worn school gear. They’ll love the opportunity to refresh their wardrobe (just in time for spring), clean out their closets and — because you’re combining the event with a donation drive for a local charity — participate in a great cause!