Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

College stores are caught between two worlds: education and retail. Maintaining retails sales is imperative to the success of the business, but so is being a part of the campus community and building student trust. Finding balance between the two can be a challenge, but one way to accomplish this is to rebrand your college store as a retail destination — a place students want to be and spend time. Making small changes to the store environment can make the space more inviting to students and encourage them to spend more time within your walls.  

Building a fanbase for your college store on social media isn’t as hard as you think. It boils down to knowing how the platforms work, understanding your audience and offering a variety of content. Once you master these elements, apply consistently. Your posts can experience what I call the web effect — a reach that expands as friends influence each other’s choices. Platform, audience and variety of posts impact your reach and audience influence. Let’s break down how each of these aspects can be utilized to increase the number of students who see your posts.

College stores face an increasingly competitive market where student loyalty is hard to win. As students choose among competitors, it is vital to communicate what you offer that they cannot get outside vendors. That’s why we sat down with MBS Marketing Coordinator Abraham Dyer to discuss how college stores can identify and use their differentiators to drive more traffic into the store and ensure it remains a vital part of the campus ecosystem.

Do you believe in luck? Do strange occurrences happen when there is a full moon? Whether or not you personally believe in superstitions, many people do. So many, in fact, that on Friday the 13th retail sales can suffer. This April, take the opportunity to turn this well-known superstition into a fun sales event for your store.

As a customer, the experience you have in stores, online and on social media reflects on the overall company. The customer experience isn’t about just mastering one of these channels, it is about providing information and support across the board. As a college store, your day-to-day interactions with students are about more than just ensuring they come back through. Positive student interactions reflect well on the entire campus community. Whether you have simplified picking up their textbooks or offer a friendly ear, you are improving the student’s overall college experience. That is what customer service is about.

Customer retention is a problem across college stores. Understanding how students feel about your store is an essential part of identifying the areas that with improvement can help you provide students with a better experience and increase satisfaction. Surveys give your store insight to what students think, their priorities and how you can better help them achieve success. But, how do you create a survey that is measurable, moves you closer to your goals and produces usable information?

A new year is a great time to revamp your social media efforts. Maybe you have pages on multiple social media platforms, but are only interacting on one of them. Maybe you have fallen off on your posting consistency or tracking efforts. Now is a good time to hash out a new plan and stop doing what isn’t working.

In the print vs. digital debate, it is easy to take sides based on personal preference. I love books: the smell, the feel, the experience, etc. However, over the last few years, my personal reading habits have shifted. Most of my reading now happens digitally. It doesn’t make me love books less, but it has given me an appreciation for the convenience of digital. When it comes to the print vs digital debate, I tend to be of the mind that the reader should choose. However, research has demonstrated that reading comprehension improves with print texts.   

We communicate all day, every day, in various ways: through speaking, email, text message, social media or simple gestures. However, all communication is not the same. Emails can often be read with an unintended tone. A sentence that seem clear to the writer might confuse the reader. These miscommunications can negatively impact your store’s intended message. That’s why developing a strong communication strategy is important.

The sounds, sights and sensations hurled at students grow as more people fight to win their demographic. A variety of businesses vie for their attention, each promising bigger and better things if they are chosen. With so much noise all around, how does your store stand out from the crowd?