Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

Why are meeting agendas important? I volunteer on the board of a local nonprofit organization and recently attended their agenda-free meeting. The meeting started at 7 p.m. and lingered on well past 9 p.m. Little was accomplished, a couple people were especially vocal and kept the meeting squarely off topic, and by the end of it, I couldn’t wait until my term on the board was over. Unfortunately, meetings like this aren’t rare in the business or educational world. However, an effective agenda can turn a meeting that feels like a waste of time into a productive collaboration.  

Given the careening cost of higher education, it might be tempting to cut required texts from your syllabus in order to help students save money. If you’ve been teaching a while, you likely have ample resources for giving lectures, assigning homework and conducting assessments. However, if you eliminate the opportunity for students to engage with a text, you eliminate more than an expense. You deprive students of the ability to develop one of our most fundamental skills — reading — in your class.

Memes, GIFs and emojis are the language of Generation Z. Entire conversations can be had without typing a single word, attitudes can be conveyed and understood in seconds, and emotions can be shared without vulnerability. While your college store wants to speak directly to students, it is easy for your message to go astray. That’s why we have created this helpful guide to increase your store’s image fluency.

Every business will eventually receive a complaint. Despite best intentions, a customer will walk away unhappy at one point or another. The customer might reach out to the business itself for a resolution to the problem, but with increasing odds, they are going to take their complaint to social media. Once the negative words are out on the internet, they are there forever. Managers and business owners have two choices: they can ignore the complaint or demonstrate their great customer service for the world to see.

Administrators and academics differ on a host of topics, but, politics aside, you know there are a lot of non-faculty on campus you appreciate. Without the department office manager, you would be stuck laboring over a copy machine more hours than you’d like. Without a well-staffed counseling center, you would have nowhere to send students in need of emotional support. Without advisors, your students would be even more confused about their path to graduation, especially at a large university where the bureaucracy is complex. An official school bookstore textbook manager is an oft-overlooked member of the administration who deserves your appreciation.

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.

It’s no secret students aren’t thrilled with the amount they receive back on textbooks in comparison to what they spend at the beginning of the semester. More services pop up online that promise better buyback rates every year. With increasing competition, make sure your store doesn’t fall behind on promoting this spring’s buyback with these six ideas on how to increase student traffic.

As food insecurity and homelessness among college students grow, the once parodied image of the starving student eating everything in sight ceases to be a laughing matter. Higher education for many is the pursuit of a better life. Along the journey toward that idealized destination, some students will face near-impossible hardships: surviving on one — if that — meal a day, finding a safe place to sleep each night and struggling to make it through each day until graduation. Without assistance, some will be forced to drop out.

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Buyback will be here before you know it. Do you have plan? How will you get the word out to students about where and when they can sell back their books? Do you have an incentive for them to choose your store rather than the competition? If these questions have filled you with anxiety, have no fear. We have gathered some easily-implemented ideas your store can use to ensure your buyback is a success.