Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

There’s still plenty of time till Halloween, but the Lake Superior College Bookstore is already getting a head start on the festivities. October 1 marked the first day of their “Pick-a-pumpkin” sale, where lucky customers can receive up to 25 percent off LSC apparel and merchandise.

Nights are getting longer. Cobwebs and candy corn adorn offices everywhere. Campus smells like crisp leaves and that telltale chill in the air, (depending on where you are in the country, of course.) Autumn is among us.

In 2008, the University of Wisconsin Alumni Association was looking for a fun and incentivized way get Badger graduates involved in scholarship fundraising. What they came up with was fairly simple, but the response they got was outstanding. The idea they settled on was a t-shirt that would be uniquely designed before each school year, and then retired as the next year’s shirt went on sale. They decided to call their creation the "Red Shirt,” in honor of the school’s primary color that is prominently featured on each iteration.

Surveys are a great way to get answers from your customers about specific topics or questions. They’re relatively easy to execute, require little effort from participants and can provide valuable insights. But there’s an even better way to get the information you need, without the limited scope that comes with the survey structure — and this method only requires a little bit more planning to achieve positive results.

VCSU Bookstore makes an appearance in downtown Valley City each year as part of the local Chamber of Commerce's "Crazy Days Sale."

Three members of the MBS marketing team spent last week in Boston, attending one of the biggest marketing conventions in the country, which was hosted by HubSpot (the marketing software platform that we use). They’ll each be sharing their experiences from Inbound 2015, and talking about what they learned as well as how they plan to teach us how to apply that knowledge to help our partner stores grow. We’ll pick up the third installment of our three-part series with Marketing Analyst Andrew Hesse.

Three members of the MBS marketing team spent last week in Boston, attending one of the biggest marketing conventions in the country, which was hosted by HubSpot (the marketing software platform that we use.) They'll each be sharing their experiences from Inbound 2015, and talking about what they learned as well as how they plan to teach us how to apply that knowledge to help our partner stores grow. We'll pick up the second installment of our three-part series with Marketing Coordinator Abraham Dyer.

Three members of the MBS marketing team spent last week in Boston, MA attending one of the biggest marketing conventions in the country, which was hosted by HubSpot (the marketing software platform that we use.) They'll each be sharing their experiences from Inbound 2015, and talking about what they learned as well as how they plan to teach us how to apply that knowledge to help our partner stores grow. Our former Web Developer, Erica Martin, is starting us off with the first installment of our three-part series.

Last week, NDSU Bookstore welcomed students back to campus with their eighth annual After Hours Party. This tradition is a nice break for staff and students alike after the hectic textbook rush ends, combining an ice cream social with simple games and plenty of prizes. Both the free ice cream and the prizes seem to be equally big draws.

More and more students want rental these days. So why is that, and where do they get their rental books from? We answer these questions and more in this infographic that covers the most noteworthy trends in the rental industry.