Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

When faculty adopt low-cost digital options like inclusive access or alternative content, it serves the bookstore. Even if it doesn’t boost overall revenues, students are more likely to purchase the lower-priced texts on time. When students have required materials, their grades improve, retention increases and administrators more readily recognize the campus store’s fundamental place in the academic community. There’s only one problem: too many faculty members aren’t aware of digital options. That places the onus on bookstore associates to educate teachers.

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No, it’s not Mexican Independence Day as many North Americans mistakenly think. It’s not even an important holiday in Mexico. But Cinco de Mayo matters in the U.S., and students everywhere will be primed for fun. This month’s marketing plan gives you all you need to host a fabulous May 5 sale event that drives foot traffic, boosts sales and cultivates student trust. Just download our colorful marketing kit and follow our step-by-step guide to success.

Imagine this: It is homecoming. The parades are on, the crowds are dense and the beer is flowing. You and six of your best associates are each armed with a Microsoft™ Surface Pro Mobile POS. In the past, you would have been forced to accept cash payments only for spirit wear. Now you can accept all tenders — even student cards and financial aid — right there at the parade. You no longer have to wait for the crowds to come to you. Your store taps into the school excitement on-the-spot.

Looking back, the things I told students about the value of books were way too abstract. When I was a teacher, I didn’t realize that the cost of course materials had soared in recent years. I didn’t know many students opted out of buying required books altogether. I thought they simply believed they could do well in an English class without reading — and I had all kinds of theories about why they dismissed reading assigned literature as unimportant. In some ways, I might have been right, but, in others, I was flat-out wrong.

Many big box retailers do it: They don’t just engage in price matching, they price match with Amazon. Some will let you take your discount at the register. Others will throw in free shipping if you demonstrate that the eCommerce behemoth has a lower price on the same product of the same brand. Still, college stores face a different set of challenges from traditional retailers. Should they jump on the price-match bandwagon, or are the dangers of revenue loss too great?

Gas stations and big-box stores aren’t the first things that come to mind when you think of employee satisfaction. Yet, that’s something QuickTrip, Costco and Trader Joe’s have in common.

Let’s pretend I’m a nontraditional student. It may be hard to picture me, because nontraditional students come from a variety of backgrounds: we are veterans just back from Afghanistan, professionals over 25 returning to school because we want to change careers or because we’re looking for advancement, and first-generation students fresh out of high school. We are also those enrolled primarily in online classes and holders of GEDs.

Persuading faculty to turn in adoptions early can be like trying to turn the Titanic. It often seems like academics exist in a world apart from administrators and retailers. In a way, they do: Many see their work as a last refuge for higher ideals within capitalist society. They take pride in how little they think about things like business and money. So, how can a humble retailer hope to catch their attention?

Faith, devotion, loyalty: College stores need more than foot traffic. They need to take centerstage as a customers’ one-stop-shop for campus necessities. Rewards programs have become one of the most common ways retailers seek to inspire fidelity in consumers, but how well do they work?