Debbie Harvie, CCR

Donald "Buz" Moser

Mark Palmore

Melanie Sparks, CCR

George Masforroll

Laurie Bales

Tom Bauer , CCR

Lisa Gallivan-Reed

Katie Lee

Jackie Middleton

Jim Lance

Mike Roos

Lynette Seymour

Fred Weber

Brian Cartier, CAE

DeAnn Hazey

Jessica James

Kristi Runser

In the midst of this holiday season, I wanted to extend my sincerest thanks to all of the NACS Foundation's volunteers and donors. You gave freely of your time, treasures and talents despite the tough economy, budget cuts, travel restrictions and other challenges that we have all faced this year. Your support enabled the Foundation to generously give back to the college store industry as never before and this has made a difference!

It has been my privilege to serve as your Foundation president this year. I want to assure you that the projects and initiatives either launched or supported during my term will continue seamlessly when I pass the torch to my colleague and friend President-elect Buz Moser at CAMEX in March.

I'd like to highlight some of the significant milestones in 2009:

• The Annual Fund campaign launch in September with a goal of $25,000. This goal was surpassed in mid-November and we are now working toward a stretch goal of $50,000. Special thanks to Pearson Higher Education who offered a $5,000 match grant to our industry leaders, who very quickly met and exceeded the challenge by $10,000. If you haven't made your personal gift yet, do so before December 31. It's fully tax-deductible and you'll be making an investment in the industry's future!Donate Online.
• More than 100 buyers were provided with full or partial grants to CAMEX and 150 more will attend CAMEX 2010! Another 65 grants were awarded for CCRA, Xtreme and NACS online courses.
• Fifteen facilitator-led programs were presented at state and regional associations.
• The first-ever Community College Summit in July 2009 was supported with Foundation grant dollars.
• The Foundation underwrote more than $40,000 in educational programming for CAMEX, Xtreme and CCRA.
• And, the Foundation is conducting the most important and largest research project in its history (in partnership with Retail Forward) to"Research, define and promulgate the college store of 2015," or, as we fondly refer to it, the 2015 Project. We anticipate that the study results will provide a new landscape in which college stores will operate and provide a forward-thinking perspective on retailing, competition, technology and shopping behavior trends, as well as identify "white space" in the industry—unmet needs of customers. This information came from dozens of industry interviews, competitive store audits, current research provide by NACS, as well as secondary research from Retail Forward's extensive library of retailing market sources and TNS' North American Intelligence Program. The results of this project will be shared at a Mega Session at CAMEX 2010 in Orlando. There will be a dedicated website, You Tube series, online education and other programs lined up to help your store stay relevant in 2015 and beyond.

All in all, the NACS Foundation committed more than $300,000 in 2009 to strengthen and improve the resources and programs to benefit for collegiate retailers, and the Foundation will continue to do its part, as the only charitable organization serving the college store industry, to support the industry.

Wishing you all a very Merry Holiday Season and a prosperous and adventurous 2010!

Does a "Buy One, Get One Free" promotion appeal to college students as much as a discount coupon? Are students more likely to purchase magazines, DVDs or event tickets if your store offered them?

These and many other student preferences and buying habits were studied in Student Watch 2009 and discussed during a recent NACS Foundation-sponsored webcast called, "Research in Action: Why and How Students Shop."

Laura Cozart, NACS Research Manager, reviewed key student feedback regarding how students determine which stores they shop in and why. "The college store exceeds satisfaction levels of students' favorite retail stores when it comes to helpful staff, so it's important to leverage that strength," Cozart said.

The webcast highlighted many ways college stores can use the survey results to maximize bookstore sales and increase customer satisfaction. One of the presenters, Susan Rasmussen, Director of Retail Services, Inver Hills Community College said, "What I particularly like about the [Student Watch] surveys is that they hone in on what types of things you should be doing, and maybe things that you don't need to be doing because they're not as effective."

After seeing that 65% of her students were shopping in her store less than once per month, compared to 47% of all students surveyed in Student Watch 2009, Rasmussen developed an action plan. To improve the customer experience, her staff worked on more one-on-one interactions with customers, asking how their classes were going and what their plans were for the holidays.

They also increased advertising and held once-a-month "Wild Wednesdays" with small table-top tents in the cafeteria, which is near their bookstore location, where they held bean-bag tosses, joke days, military-trivia days and bingo. Rasmussen explained that the results were great for driving traffic to the bookstore, saying, "Our sales in clothing were up 60% from last year, and our candy, snacks and pop were up 70%!"

Shawna Cawthorn, Director, Western Kentucky University Bookstore, focused on the main reason students gave for not shopping in college stores: price. It's not easy to overcome price objections, particularly with course materials. Student Watch 2009 survey feedback confirmed that students assume all prices are higher when textbooks are perceived to be high, even if they don't have any experience buying other product categories. According to Laura Cozart, "Oftentimes a student's perception that textbook prices are significantly higher at the college store permeates their thinking about all of the product categories offered at the college store."

To counter those pricing concerns, Western Kentucky adjusted margins based on the price of textbooks. "We implemented a sliding scale on our textbook margins," Cawthorn said. "The higher the price of the textbook, the lower we reduced margins. [This] was a lot of extra work for our staff, literally hand picking books that we were going to lower the margins, but in the end it most definitely paid off. We saw higher sell through on textbooks, increasing our revenues significantly."

These and many other ideas to make the most of the Student Watch 2009 results were presented on this NACS Foundation-sponsored webcast, which is currently archived on the NACS Professional Development Page, www.nacs.org/public/events/calendar.asp?EventType=2. Be sure to login and find out how to use the survey results to maximize store sales and improve customer satisfaction. To get all of the results, order your report online.
www.nacs.org/nacs_store/default.asp?productid=4984 NACS Store members pay only $119 (a $599 value). --Tom Hoffa, Pearson Higher Education

Get inspired about building innovation and creativity in your store at the Motivate, Escalate, Innovate session at CAMEX 2010. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to dialogue with an award-winning panel of industry leaders and learn how they've worked to build a culture that facilitates innovative ideas, encourages imagination and inspires each member of their team to contribute to the vision. Head back to your store with tips and ideas for cultivating innovation, suggestions on ways to present new ideas to decision makers, key ways to monitor and measure success and a list of resources available to help you along the way. Moderated by Debbie Harvie, Managing Director of University Community Services at the University of British Columbia, the Motivate, Escalate, Innovate session will leave you determined to make new things happen in your store! Don't miss it, Friday, 3/12/2010 from 9:15-10:15a.m.

Barbara Racine has been a devoted college store professional for over 25 years. She currently serves on the NASCORP board and Chairs the Education Committee for Camex 2011, in addition to her duties as Director of the University of Puget Sound Bookstore.

Barbara was interested in attending Xtreme! 2009 in San Diego last July, but her school was unable to finance the trip. Luckily, the NACS Foundation awarded Barbara one of 14 grants to attend Xtreme! 2009.

NF: You received a NACS Foundation grant to attend Xtreme! 2009. Why did you apply?
BR: "We're a small store, so our travel budget is limited. I would not have been able to attend without the grant, and I so appreciate it!"

NF: Was it easy to apply for the NACS Foundation grant?
BR: "It's a very easy process to apply. There's an online form where you write a brief justification for why the grant is needed and how you plan to apply what you learn to your store."

NF: What is the most valuable insight you gained by attending Xtreme! 2009?
BR: It's all about the "experience". We all noticed the extremes of both bad and good shopping experiences in the stores we visited

NF: Could you share a "good" example of retailing you saw at Xtreme! 2009?
BR: The conference was held across from a high-end mall, and each group visited various stores and saw examples of good and bad retailing. One of the good experiences occurred at L'Occitane, which is a French store that sells skincare products. The sales person greeted everyone cheerfully at the door. She was so positive and provided samples. It's really all about the customer experience. In this economy, people want a good experience in stores."

NF: Did you realize any opportunities for improvement in your store?
BR: Returning from Xtreme, we had a staff meeting to talk about customer service and rededicated ourselves to our vision of "knock-your-socks-off" customer service.

Cosmetically, we changed the focus of some light fixtures and after visiting those retail stores, re-did our display of scarves and pashminas. As often as possible, we will put only overstock on the bottom shelves since I learned that shoppers rarely look down below their knees at fixtures

NF: One of the benefits for attending the conference was a free consultation with College Store Design. Did you take advantage of this offer?
BR: No, our store just finished working with College Store Design for new fixtures prior to Xtreme!

NF: Did you enjoy attending Xtreme! 2009? BR: The program was very rewarding, and I brought back lots of ideas for our store. It was so helpful to share the good, the bad, and the ugly with other store professionals. Mostly, it reinforced that what we're doing in the store is right. - Tom Hoffa, Pearson Higher Education