Topics: college retail, college stores, student hunger
The Campus Store at the University of Utah has been making headlines lately with their Charity Round-up Program. In the five years the bookstore has been running the program, they have raised more than $54,000 for a wide range of campus organizations — just under $24,000 was raised in 2018.
Topics: college retail, omnichannel, college stores
At the 2019 ICBA convention in Jacksonville, Florida, Barnes & Noble College’s Vice President of Marketing Ken Wincko and Director of Campus Relations for the Northeast Territory Jennifer Russell had the opportunity to present to the Large Store Group members of the Independent College Bookstore Association (ICBA). There, they shared Barnes & Noble College retail trends and insights and gave audience members a look at the future of collegiate retail.
If you’ve worked on a campus before, you probably don’t need anyone to tell you when finals are approaching. You know because the term is coming to an end, of course, but you also know because the atmosphere changes. The collective tension-level rises. Students behave strangely: They’re easily triggered, easily confused and sometimes downright rude. It can be a rough time for collegiate retailers and their associates. But it can also be an opportunity to burnish your store’s reputation as a refuge from the academic grind.
What’s the biggest retail shopping day of the year? It’s not Black Friday. Actually, December 23rd and Super Saturday (the last Saturday before Christmas) have replaced Black Friday as the busiest shopping days of the year, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the entire holiday season from Thanksgiving through the New Year is primed with shoppers who are ready to spend their money on bargains. But, how can college stores take advantage of this annual gluttony of consumerism?
Topics: college retail, mobile POS, Marketing to Students
You are five minutes late to meet a friend, but you also have to pick up a couple things before the store closes. You rush inside the store, hoping to get in and out quickly. Immediately you are greeted by rows of overstuffed shelves with more merchandise that you can take in at a glance. You scan the store looking for someone to help you or a sign pointing you in the way you need to go. You only see flashy, red sale signage and uninterested faces. Already late, you squeeze your way through the aisles searching for the few things that you needed to pick up. Your phone rings. It’s your friend asking where you are. You shove the items you managed to find onto the shelves and leave because you don’t have time to deal with it right now.
Big data has infiltrated nearly every aspect of our lives. It determines the advertisements we see, the routes our GPS directs us, the posts we encounter on social media, unusual activity on our credit cards, entertainment recommendations from streaming services and the list could go on. Big data has become big business.
Think about when you go to a store. What do you enjoy? What parts do you dread? What if you could take out the experiences you don’t like — would you shop more or less? For over 20 years, Amazon has bet on the fact that if you can remove the areas that cause friction with consumers, they will shop more in your store. Looking at the current state of the retail market, they are right.
Topics: college retail, MBS Expert, college bookstore, spotlight
We had the pleasure of sitting down in Oklahoma with Territory Manager David Ritz to discuss his long career in the college bookstore industry and how he thinks college retailers can adapt to the changing course materials distribution environment.
MBS Systems Sales Consultant, Patrick Cervenik sat down with us to discuss the changes happening in the retail industry, and how college stores can stay adaptable to the transitioning environment.
Topics: college retail, college stores, branding
College stores are caught between two worlds: education and retail. Maintaining retails sales is imperative to the success of the business, but so is being a part of the campus community and building student trust. Finding balance between the two can be a challenge, but one way to accomplish this is to rebrand your college store as a retail destination — a place students want to be and spend time. Making small changes to the store environment can make the space more inviting to students and encourage them to spend more time within your walls.
Contact our editorial team to set up an interview or to contribute a guest post.
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