Finding ways to improve your store’s customer service is a matter of survival. Customer experience is a trendy buzzword in retail: it is a critical shift in perspective. Young consumers are abandoning brand loyalty, letting their individual experiences direct where they will spend their time and money. That decision comes down to their experience with your store, whether in-person or online.
Topics: college retail, college store stories, adoptions
The Ichabod Shop at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, has found a way to make faculty aware of the deadline for course material adoptions, open the door for more conversations and be the “person” departments want to hear from daily.
Topics: social media, contests, Bookstore marketing
We talk a lot about the different social media platforms and the potential benefit of using them because they provide a direct connection with students. As Willie Sutton said, “Go where the money is … and go there often.” However, just being on the networks isn’t enough. The content you post and its effectiveness will directly influence the return on your efforts. What does that mean? Your store needs to understand the relationship social media forges between the store and the student, and what students expect in return.
Topics: buyback, cost savings, Bookstore marketing
When Googling “the rising cost of education,” more than 63 million articles are available for our reading pleasure. We don’t have the time to comb through articles and whitepapers trying to determine the socio-economic and political root causes. Regardless, the rising costs of education can be attributed to two factors:
Topics: Higher Ed, retail technology, MBS Systems Forums
Only a couple weeks away, MBS Systems’ Spring Forums is almost here. There is still time to register, but space is running out fast. Join MBS Systems for this free event in Columbia, Missouri, April 18-20 for three days of hands-on learning and networking with other college stores.
Host an April Showers Bring May Flowers customer appreciation extravaganza; your opportunity to make sales and motivate the troops as buyback approaches. With students preparing for exams and needing last minute supplies, you have an opportunity to generate a bump in sales.
Topics: social media, facebook, Bookstore marketing
As the world’s largest social media site, Facebook may be the hub of your online platform. With more than a billion active users on Facebook, it is a natural place to look when setting up online advertisements, but how do you ensure you are reaching your specific market? With the declining organic reach, it is increasingly difficult to reach loyal fans of your page, let alone engage with new ones. Advertising and boosting your posts are the next logical steps, but with such a large base, defining your audience is essential. You can choose to do it through keywords, regions, countries, pixels, etc. However, at the end of the day, if you aren’t using Facebook Pixels, you are ignoring Facebook’s greatest targeted advertising tool.
Topics: retail technology, MBS Arc, MBS Systems Arc
The tasks associated with running a bookstore take you away from facing customers. Instead, you sit in front of countless web browser tabs with multiple log-ins telling you what you have on the shelf, where to send POs, managing your ledger and figuring out who to staff and when. Now there’s help.
Today you will know how to make at least $800 more than you did yesterday and more than $300 every day thereafter — by doing less. The social media black hole is costing you money each day.
You hear rumblings about a new website or service advertising itself on campus as the latest, best and only student-oriented, free marketplace for selling books, apparel and other items directly to other students.
Contact our editorial team to set up an interview or to contribute a guest post.
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