With 2024 behind us and 2025 underway, let’s take a moment to look back at some of the best tips from 2024 on how to strengthen your college store’s market position.
Four Tips to Boost Campus Store Sales in 2025
- Go where your customers are
“Getting a mobile station has been a huge win for our store. I wanted the mobile POS system because it opens up so many ways to generate revenue. We already do spirit wear and merchandising. Now, with the mobile station, we are doing all of the athletics concessions, selling merchandise and candy. We've been able to take our merchandise from our brick-and-mortar store to our athletic facilities with our MBS system. We're still able to monetize and track our sales,” Sara Montgomery, Bookstore Supervisor, College of the Siskiyous Campus Gift and Book Shop said.
Read more about how the Siskiyous Campus Gift and Book Shop has created new campus store revenue streams in 2024. - Social media shopping continues to provide opportunities
Engage customers and add another sales revenue stream with social media. All the major social media platforms offer your store an opportunity to sell more merchandise. Stores can set up to sell directly through the channel (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), utilize social media advertising to guide traffic to your eCommerce site, or consistently link your followers to the items they see in your regular posts. For example, if your store makes a video reminding students to return their books, wear a shirt from your current merchandise. Link to that shirt when you post the reminder on social media.
The reason why social media shopping appeals to its audience is that it’s simple. Check out this easy instructional post for how to set up Facebook and Instagram shopping for your campus store. - Pursue abandoned online shopping carts
You work hard to drive online traffic to your eCommerce site. The shopper loads up a virtual shopping cart, but then something happens before the checkout is completed. Maybe their phone dies or something distracts them. Don’t let that shopping cart be forgotten.
Follow these strategies to decrease campus store cart abandonment. - Plan campus store events
Fun campus store events are a great way to drive traffic to the campus store and increase FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Create an event calendar with fun events designed for each month through the school year along with a marketing plan for each event.
Check out these great spring college store event ideas and take a look at our free college store event marketing plans.
We are excited to hear what new ideas and approaches your store will take in 2025. Let us know in the comments.
