University Business - September 2006 - (Page 56)

Not Your Typical Textbook Advice Getting in with Government 14. Follow the customer. during buyback. Students who purchased from Keeping up with competitors entails the store are given the opportunity to sell their At the University of Delaware, old- communicating the value of the cam- books back sooner, and for more money. school customer service strategies have been pus store, not just to students, par- According to Mason, the program has im- expanded in recent years. Here's a simple but ents, and faculty members but also to proved customer attitudes and had a positive valuable one: Be where the customer is. local officials and state legislators. impact on market share. In a survey, 75 per- During buyback, bookstore staffers set up The National Association of Col- lege Stores maintains talking points cent of students said they liked the idea. remote buyback locations in key spots on cam- and FAQs to help bookstore directors pus. A mobile buyback van then travels around 18. and administrators undertake such Raid the competition. to make the process of selling back even more endeavors www.nacs.org/public/in- convenient. It gives us some flexibility to get As more people go online to buy du s t r y. a s p . NACS representatives, to where the students are on a particular day and sell books, campus store directors are con- including Director of Government Re- and time, says Galt, the bookstore manager. cerned about a diminishing supply of used lations Rich Hershman, also do their books. Wolf of Gettysburg College browses on- own legwork. 15. Guarantee low prices. line competitors to ramp up her own inventory Sometimes it's a matter of basics. of used books. Since classes at Gettysburg tend Price undoubtedly motivates many When Congressman Buck McKeon of to be small, Wolf has been able to locate books students more than anything. Last year, with California learned that college book- to fill many faculty requests. support from top administration, Galt helped store margins are relatively low, he was shocked. His background is re- institute a lowest-price guarantee for all text- 19. Get texts off the online tail, says Hershman. When McKeon books sold by the University of Delaware found out the average margin for market. Bookstore. Now, if a student finds a book at bookstores he was just blown away. a lower price at a brick-and-mortar competi- Some folks take Wolf 's strategy further: At a He's used to margins of 50 percent. tor but not online , the bookstore will match recent conference, Wolf heard one bookstore So, the more that policymakers and that lower price and then reduce the tickets director talk about how he peruses websites to legislators understand the issues and on any remaining copies in the store. find cheap books, even if a faculty member has what the store's role is, the better off not yet put in an adoption request for the title. the stores are going to be, and the 16. Pay big in buyback. He will buy books to get them off the mar- better off the colleges and universi- ket, shares Wolf. He said, `Why do we want Clearly the folks running the Uni- ties are going to be. to make it easier for our students to say the versity of Delaware Bookstore know that bookstore's not the cheapest game in town?' money talks: They recently opted to double RUeIsaoourcesBookstore, www the money they offer students for used books 20. Continue to talk. during buyback. In the past year, primar- BY - d h University .byui.edu/bookstore ily because of lowest-price guarantee and the Parents and students, fueled by Connect2One, www.connect2one.com doubled price for buyback, we've seen our sales reports in the mainstream media, gener- CU Book Store, improve significantly, says Barbara L. Krep- ally believe textbooks are just too expensive. http://cubooks.colorado.edu pel, the university's associate vice president Lorry McMahon, bookstore manager for the DeVry University Virtual Bookstore, Washington & Jefferson College Pa. Book- for Administrative Services. Much of this is http://devry.efollett.com/devryland /index.html thinking in the same way as any kind of retail. store, works against that mindset by doling out Follett Higher Education Group, You have to know what your customer wants, brochures from NACS answering the ques- www.fheg.follett.com be where they are. It would be easy for us to be tion, Why do my textbooks cost so much? Gettysburg College Bookstore, the only game in town, but we're not. The pamphlet breaks down the textbook pric- http://bookstore.gettysburg.edu ing process to give students and their families Nebraska Book Company, www.nebook.com 17. Reward loyalty. valuable knowledge, she explains. She also National Association of College Stores, points out that money made at the bookstore We thought it seemed like a lot www.nacs.org goes back into the college and therefore ulti- of these students who would buy online were University of Delaware Bookstore, www.udel.edu/bookstore mately benefits students. the ones who would try to be the first ones to University of Idaho Bookstore, Pricing is just one challenging situation that sell back, says Doug Mason, manager of the www.uidahobookstore.com bookstore managers and directors face. But Brigham Young University http://www.nacs.org/public/industry.asp http://www.nacs.org/public/industry.asp http://www.byui.edu/bookstore http://www.byui.edu/bookstore http://www.connect2one.com http://cubooks.colorado.edu http://devry.efollett.com/devryland/index.html http://www.fheg.follett.com http://bookstore.gettysburg.edu http://www.nebook.com http://www.nacs.org http://www.udel.edu/bookstore http://www.uidahobookstore.com http://www.mubookstore.com http://www.washjeff.edu/store http://www.washjeff.edu/store/bookstore

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - September 2006

Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Marketing
Human Resources
Money Matters
Community Colleges
Summer Conference Report
Learning After Loss
Not Your Typical Textbook Advice
A Greener Attitude
Mobile Technology: One For All
Lessons in Landlording
Business Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - September 2006