Going into the fall term, it is important to strengthen your position on campus by lowering costs, both for students and the college store. However, how can stores lower costs while maintaining the service and quality customers expect? MBS offers college stores many cost-saving solutions that are also designed to help streamline store operations and elevate the customer experience.
Every year the University of Utah Campus Store holds a large Apple® sale in their store. This year, unable to open the store to customers, they decided to do the next best thing: take the event online. The official order pickup event was held from May 4-8. However, the store began taking preorders three weeks before the official event. The end result: more than $1 million in sales.
College stores have always been able to offer students and the campus community a more personal experience than online competitors. As more shopping moves online due to COVID-19, how can college stores continue to stand apart? The Morehead State University Store emphasizes community and offers a personal touch to online orders that encourages customers to come back again and again.
Looking toward the fall term, many college stores are making plans for multiple possible scenarios they may face. For many, there is still a lot unknown. However, lowering costs as well as saving time and employee resources remains important in every scenario. For this Campus Store Conversation, we invited three college stores to share what they are doing to help lower costs and efficiently manage course materials.
Recently, MBS Field Marketing Territory Manager Beth Gallagher had the opportunity to sit down with UC Davis Stores’ Aaron Ochoa, Director, and Jason Lorgan, Executive Director of Campus Recreation, Student Unions and Stores, to discuss college bookstore industry trends and how their stores work to elevate student experience. So today, we bring you our first MBS Foreword Online podcast, Campus Store Conversations.
Online shoppers expect an easy and seamless shopping experience on your college store website. Part of that is easy navigation. Many shoppers will not devote a lot of time to searching for the brand, color or size before heading to another website. Website filters help ensure customers can easily sort through your merchandise to find exactly what they want.
With college campuses shut down, Spring 2020 buyback and rental returns went into uncharted territory for a lot of stores. The Dixie State University Campus Store came up with a plan to work within these extraordinary circumstances to get the used books and rental returns they depend on each term, and the results were better than they hoped.
Did you know that on sites like Instagram and Facebook students can make online purchases from your store? Setting up these additional sales channels is relatively simple and could result in more sales for the store.
Even in the midst of a shutdown, campus stores are still going above and beyond to serve their communities and offer students unparalleled support. The College Store at SUNY Potsdam in New York has made four significant changes to provide students with outstanding service and demonstrate how much they care. We recently spoke with Lyndon Lake, Director, the College Store, SUNY Potsdam, to discuss what changes he has implemented in the store and how he keeps the store part of wider campus conversations.
Publisher consignment rentals help lower student costs and provide bookstores with a recyclable rental product that is easy to adopt and manage. We recently sat down with MBS Vice President of Inventory Control Michael Tolly to talk with him about publisher consignment rentals.
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