Campus store professionals are busy. Increasingly asked to do more with fewer resources, stores need tools that will streamline workloads and help keep costs down. When MBS presented SimpleSource to the Skyline College Bookstore, Store Manager Kevin Chak immediately saw the potential it had to save him and the store a lot of time.
Campus stores must lower course material costs to help improve college affordability and ensure student success. However, without on-time textbook adoptions, many affordability solutions are simply not possible. The “Quick Tips to Improve Your Faculty Adoption Rates” white paper is designed to help campus stores improve faculty communication and increase adoption rates.
The URI Campus Store has always used a bin-and-hold system for its wantlist fulfillment and hasn't relied on marketplace sourcing. When the store staff saw MBS’ latest, innovative ordering tool, SimpleSource, they recognized that it had the potential to streamline their wholesale wantlist fulfillment and provide greater order transparency.
Kids playing outside, cookouts, and spending time with friends and family: one of the best parts of summer is when communities come together. The North Dakota State Bookstore taps into that summertime spirit and inspires the entire campus community with a great college campus event idea — a summer yard sale.
There comes a time when every campus store will eventually need to create a sign, a social media image or header, or a poster to market an in-store event or promotion to college students. However, some campus stores may not have access to a graphic designer. In those cases, you or someone on your staff, might have to design the piece yourself. A basic understanding of the elements of design helps you produce a better, more professional finished product that entices students into your store
Customer experience is a buzzword in the retail world. A great retail experience can change how a customer perceives a store and the store’s brand. However, in a campus store, the impact of a student’s experience with your store extends beyond the walls and brand of your store. It also changes how students view your entire campus.
In today’s retail world, customers have very specific expectations for service, convenience and even technology. As more traditional retailers adopt new technology and practices to improve the customer experience, consumers expect the same level of service from every store they shop with — including the campus store.
The SDSU Bookstore’s relationship with students begins before classes start. Students need a reliable place where they can purchase their course materials, but great campus stores like the SDSU Bookstore offer so much more. The SDSU Bookstore educates freshman students and their families during orientations by giving them tips on how to save money on their course materials.
As course materials become increasingly complicated, the overall student experience during rush can influence how they see the campus store. Some students see the crowds and immediately decide to order online. Others brave the rush only to become frustrated when they can’t find what they need and have to wait in line for help. Recently, we spoke with several stores that have implemented textbook counter service to improve the student experience in their stores.
Students at community colleges often face a variety of challenges. From balancing work life, school life and family life to weathering financial hardships and covering living expenses, many students are one unplanned hurdle away from not being able to finish their degree. Campus resources that offer students academic or nonacademic lifelines can be the extra boost they need to make it through the week, the month, the year or all the way to graduation. Recently, Normandale Community College offered its students one such lifeline that showed how much their school and community cares about one another.
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