Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

College stores face an increasingly competitive market where student loyalty is hard to win. As students choose among competitors, it is vital to communicate what you offer that they cannot get outside vendors. That’s why we sat down with MBS Marketing Coordinator Abraham Dyer to discuss how college stores can identify and use their differentiators to drive more traffic into the store and ensure it remains a vital part of the campus ecosystem.

Do you believe in luck? Do strange occurrences happen when there is a full moon? Whether or not you personally believe in superstitions, many people do. So many, in fact, that on Friday the 13th retail sales can suffer. This April, take the opportunity to turn this well-known superstition into a fun sales event for your store.

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?

As a customer, the experience you have in stores, online and on social media reflects on the overall company. The customer experience isn’t about just mastering one of these channels, it is about providing information and support across the board. As a college store, your day-to-day interactions with students are about more than just ensuring they come back through. Positive student interactions reflect well on the entire campus community. Whether you have simplified picking up their textbooks or offer a friendly ear, you are improving the student’s overall college experience. That is what customer service is about.

Customer retention is a problem across college stores. Understanding how students feel about your store is an essential part of identifying the areas that with improvement can help you provide students with a better experience and increase satisfaction. Surveys give your store insight to what students think, their priorities and how you can better help them achieve success. But, how do you create a survey that is measurable, moves you closer to your goals and produces usable information?

Welcome to our fourth installment of Textbook Wisdom, the Foreword Online series devoted to speaking directly to faculty about how the course material industry affects the classroom. This week's article discusses the advantages of encouraging students to use the official school bookstore. Share it on social media; send the link to faculty. Bridge the gap between educators and collegiate retailers. 

A new year is a great time to revamp your social media efforts. Maybe you have pages on multiple social media platforms, but are only interacting on one of them. Maybe you have fallen off on your posting consistency or tracking efforts. Now is a good time to hash out a new plan and stop doing what isn’t working.