Topics: Higher Ed, K-12, MBS Systems
On Black Friday of 1977, Dan Schuppan, president of MBS Textbook Exchange, was having an in-person conversation with Dave Propst, a young man who worked at Bill’s Bookstore, the off-campus bookstore at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Propst was interviewing for the role of a wholesale rep for Missouri Book Services (now MBS).
Topics: Higher Ed, college retail, Marketing to Students
Everywhere you look there is another article touting the benefits of eCommerce — and it is impressive. However, brick-and-mortar stores are still going strong and shoppers’ reasons for choosing in-person shopping over online shopping remain valid, as do the reasons some shoppers prefer making online purchases. The beauty of the dilemma is that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Not only can both exist in harmony, but they can work together to provide a better experience for the shopper and the store.
Topics: MBS Systems, customer loyalty, college stores
Rewards programs are a great way to give back to customers and to encourage repeat business. Knowing your customers and adjusting to what suits them best is essential to developing a long-term plan. If they aren’t using the rewards program, it isn’t benefiting them or the store. When UC Davis Stores evaluated their Aggie Kickbacks program in comparison to UC Merced and UCLA, they saw room for improvement.
Prepare yourself for the March Bracket Battle chaos! This month people will be asking you which college basketball team is going to go all the way and let’s face it, we have no idea which team is better and can only name a handful of players. But your Bracket Battle can be about more than basketball, and you’re going to take the annual bracket bonanza to a new level.
Topics: customer loyalty, campus store, customer service
Nearly every store and restaurant has a loyalty rewards program. Some give you a specific item for free, some give money off and others build points that you can use in specified ways. However, when everyone is running a loyalty program, it becomes harder for a programs to live up to its intended purpose: to inspire loyalty.
Topics: bookstore events, adoptions, cost savings
Part of working in higher education is spending a good portion of each day trying to solve problems. What if you could address the concerns of faculty, staff and students while building your school’s relationship with its publishing partners, vendors and wholesalers — in just one event? It sounds too good to be true, but that’s what Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, recently did.
Topics: bookstores, adoptions, cost savings
A frequent point of contention between students and their school is course material affordability. Students want better prices, but their expenses keep going up. Often the cost-savings battle is fought on all fronts with each side of the issue squared off into their own corner, but what if it didn’t have to be?
The spring season is about getting ready for a break, the last push before exams and building business before buyback and summer. This month “Spring into Savings” with a sale designed to clear out the old and make room for new stock.
Web logging, an online diary or “blogging” is not just for hipsters sitting in a coffee shop writing about their views on politics, skinny jeans and the best beard look. It’s now a tool. A resource. A “thing.” It’s the megaphone for you to tell your customers what they need to know from the mouth of the expert: you.
Topics: college retail, retail management, college stores
You’re a college bookstore manager. A superhero. A rare breed. You’re a leader and a motivator. You make a retail environment run like a well-oiled machine. Every day you engage customers, hire and train employees, decide which items to carry, manage money, deal with sales calls, and now take on the challenges of posting to Facebook, Tweeting and taking on the “other duties as assigned.”
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