Topics: college stores, campus retail, working from home
Many of us are adjusting to a new work-from-home routine. We asked you to show us your feathery, woolly and furry friends as you settle into your new office environment. We’ve compiled the fun images you shared of your pets, and some of our pets, to hopefully add a smile to your day.
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.
Topics: used books, wholesale textbooks, textbook sourcing
The Hawk Bookstore at Santiago Canyon College has found a solution that helps lower overhead costs, improve student savings and increase sales. What has made such a difference in the store? More used books.
Topics: campus retail, online buyback
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.
Wantlists can be handled in different ways, but the goal is always the same: get more access to books you need at the lowest possible cost. One of the best methods to do that is by utilizing wantlist reworks. A rework is when your wantlist is compared to the available inventory more than once a day. For example, when you submit a wantlist to MBS and leave it there for a length of time, it can be compared against our inventory multiple times a day. Each time the list is compared, that is a rework.
MBS Online Buyback is a great student resource that your college store can easily provide at no additional cost. As more colleges and universities move classes online in an effort to protect student and community health, it is important establish a buyback plan to prepare for the possibility that it may not be feasible to host an on-campus buyback. MBS is here to help you do that.
Campus bookstores are always coming up with creative ways to reach nontraditional students. Kansas City Kansas Community College found a way to engage nontraditional students and even some faculty members and staff with on-campus games of Dungeons & Dragons. We recently spoke with Chris Guthrie, operations assistant at KCKCC, about his success and how he tapped into the community’s sense of adventure.
Topics: college stores, collegiate retail, loyalty program
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.
Improving student affordability is a team effort. That’s why it’s important to increase faculty engagement with the campus store. Some instructors may not be aware that the timing of their adoptions can affect the cost of materials for students. Download this checklist to show faculty how they can contribute to student affordability and how the bookstore also works toward the same goal.
Topics: bookstore events, collegiate retail
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.
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