College stores work hard to ensure that all students have easy access to the materials they need to be successful each term. It can be disheartening to hear that a professor recommended students purchase their course materials somewhere else. Get proactive about winning faculty endorsements for the bookstore, so they recommend your store first each term.
What advantages set the campus store apart from its competitors? Campus stores have direct access to students, exclusive channels of communication, the largest variety of payment methods, more innate trust and a mission that extends beyond retail. Let’s take a look at the five specific ways your store can build student engagement.
With a busy shopping season quickly approaching, now is a good time to start reminding students why they should check out the campus bookstore for gift giving ideas. From preparing for finals to traveling over the holiday, there’s a lot on students’ minds. The college store can offer an easy shopping solution. Today, we’re going to look at reasons students should shop in your store and ways to inspire shoppers this year.
Orientation events introduce students to the campus and all the services that are available to them during their time in school, including the bookstore. As students begin to come back to campuses, it is important for stores to participate in these events to let students know the campus store is still the best place to get their course materials for the upcoming term.
As COVID-19 restrictions begin to lift, mobile sales and events will still be pivotal to the success of college stores. From pop-up locations to campus events and celebrations, the bookstore needs to be where students and customers congregate. That’s why it's important that your store’s retail system has the mobile options necessary to meet customer demands inside and out of the bookstore.
Effectively communicating with students about changes has been one of the biggest challenges for bookstores recently. Many stores have developed new and successful communication channels by working with campus stakeholders. For example, working with campus marketing to send out announcements or putting reminders in the LMS.
Digital advertising can help you expand your bookstore’s reach, but you may not have money set aside in your budget to invest in advertising online. This term, as buyback quickly approaches, consider using your MBS promo dollars to digitally advertise your in-store or online buyback.
Social media can help drive store traffic (both in-store and online), and it can even be an additional revenue stream for your college store. That’s why it is worth devoting time to strengthen your social media presence and maximize student engagement. We recently sat down with Salisbury University Bookstore’s Merchandiser Bryan Hailey and Merchandiser Emily Davis to discuss their store’s approach to social media marketing.
Creating word of mouth and inspiring customer traffic are essential to a sale’s success. Traditional in-store sales and online sales have a lot of similarities. Both require marketing, social media and a prepared staff. However, there are a few things you can do to ensure your online sale goes smoothly and improve results.
With college campuses shut down, Spring 2020 buyback and rental returns went into uncharted territory for a lot of stores. The Dixie State University Campus Store came up with a plan to work within these extraordinary circumstances to get the used books and rental returns they depend on each term, and the results were better than they hoped.
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