Collegiate retail events build campus relevance. With excellent planning, campus stores can host events with a strong return on investment and become staples in campus life. We’ve culled advice from collegiate retail experts nationwide and found three proven best practices for planning successful bookstore events.
OSU University Store’s Starla Marshall has acquired a trove of industry wisdom in her 30 years of collegiate retail. As Textbook Manager, she ensures that OSU’s 20,000-plus students have the right course materials for thousands of classes offered each term.
When bookstores build community, they fuel campus retail relevance. The four bookstore events presented here have successfully nurtured community at colleges across the country. All are powerful bookstore marketing tools that bring campuses together.
For the University of Pittsburgh Stores’ Steven Wilson, events are a powerful college store marketing tool. He manages The Pitt Shop, one of the University of Pittsburgh’s two standalone apparel stores. Situated on a main thoroughfare that links the university and downtown Pittsburgh, The Pitt Shop attracts students, faculty, staff and city-dwellers looking for the latest in Panthers attire. We sat down to talk to Mr. Wilson about marketing bookstore events for a wide range of customers.
For University of California Davis Stores Associate Director of Finance Tracy Roman, a college store system is incomplete without a superb business intelligence tool. Ms. Roman was among the first to test drive the latest iteration of Dashboard, the real-time analytics tool for college stores that integrates with the MBS system. We sat down to talk to Ms. Roman about how business intelligence is shaping the future of campus bookstores.
With MBS Online Buyback, your campus retail store can provide students with a valuable service even when they’re not on campus. MBS will help you set up a remote wholesale buyback option linked from your store’s website quickly and easily. Students simply input their books’ ISBN numbers to create a quote, print a free shipping label and send their books to MBS.
For Wichita State University, the Shocker Store is more than a collegiate retail hub. It’s a place that fans, alumni and students associate with a sense of belonging. Director Andi Stipp fosters this reputation with a college store loyalty program called Shocker Rewards. We sat down with Ms. Stipp to talk about marketing a campus bookstore with loyalty rewards and why delighted customers are the best measure of a program’s success.
For Vincennes University Bookstores' Director Karen Faulkner, collegiate retail is about putting students first. She and Marketing Director Aimee Cummings regularly host bookstore events that draw hundreds of students, drive word of mouth and nurture the bookstore’s reputation as a lively campus hub. We sat down with Ms. Faulkner and Ms. Cummings to ask about what makes events successful, how they affect campus bookstore marketing and why fun events can never really fail.
Johnson County Community College Bookstore’s Kristine Herman has a deep understanding of the college store industry. She started working for JCCC in the warehouse at age 20. Since then, she’s worked her way up to the role of Assistant Manager. She said her background helps her understand how different parts of the business affect the whole.
Not long after Jake Swanson joined Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) University Store as the technology store manager, he was invited to a meeting with some of the nation’s top minds in computer science. The topic: MBS Store Technology Solution’s Apple Device Enrollment Program (DEP).
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