Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

At the end of September, Pope Francis made a historic visit to Philadelphia. This coincided with the final festivities for the weeklong World Meeting of Families, the world’s largest gathering of Catholic families. Because it had been years since the last papal visit, Neumann University Bookstore Director Natalie VanWyk knew it would be important to acknowledge the event, but also realized that she could use it to increase traffic to the bookstore.

Last weekend, the Kansas City Royals made history by beating the New York Mets in Game 5 to score their second World Series win in four appearances. First and foremost, we wish the team a big congrats from down Interstate 70!

From 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., most store workers are hopefully in bed fast asleep. The folks at SDSU Bookstore were keeping the action going late October 26, hosting more than 80 gamers for a Halo 5 launch party and raffle.

If you haven’t heard of it before, Periscope is a new app that uses live streaming video to reach followers anytime, anyplace. All a Periscope user has to do is pull out his or her phone, open the app, and start filming. Their followers will get a notification on their phone saying that User X has just gone live, thereby encouraging them to tune in and see what’s happening.

MBS didn't become the premier textbook wholesaler and college store systems provider overnight, and it definitely didn't get there without lots of help.

Every October, National Student Day is celebrated at college stores around the country. For the third year in a row, the Rocker Shop on the campus of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology got in the holiday spirit and put together their own event to show their appreciation for their students. This year, they celebrated their students in a couple of ways.

Technology and the internet are a part of everyday life for collegiate retail stores. Today, concerns for those stores include focusing on things like increasing sales through the store website or securely organizing their data or inventory in a digital format.

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.