Are you taking advantage of the College Store of 2015 resources?
You’ve seen the presentation, checked out the website and even watched the webisodes on the College Store of 2015 recommendations…so…have you taken action? Have any changes been made in your college store? Have staff and student workers been encouraged to participate and get excited about 2015?
In partnership with leading retail expert Retail Forward, a Kantar retail company, the NACS Foundation’s goal was to develop tools and resources to help college stores transition from today to tomorrow—enabling them to become dynamic campus retailers serving their campus communities in new and innovative ways.
“Defining the College Store of 2015” provides solid business model success factors—Capabilities, Customers, and Communications—and accompanying Retail Requirements (Curriculum, Connections, Services, Frequency), that will affect both the physical environment and operations to create a lifestyle experience that is unique to each campus.
We asked Debbie Harvie, Director of the UBC Bookstore and Foundation past president, to share what she has done to get her staff and student workers up to speed on 2015 recommendations.
So how do you make sense of the 3Cs and 4Rs? I wanted all of our staff to see the 2015 video so that they could all get an idea as to how we are going to address changes in our industry and prepare our store to be successful! We set up meetings for each department in the store to view the video and then an in-store staff member facilitated discussions with each group. The discussions focused on what we as a store could do to start moving to 2015. The discussions were very energetic and the ideas that came out are being used already. So far we have done the following:
Curriculum: Adding eBook sales via the website and including rental books in our selection this fall. We are able to sell print-on-demand in partnership with Xerox.
Connections: Facebook sign-up promotion - we are trying to add 2,500 students to our page this fall and new friends will get a special t-shirt; we will be selling t-shirts designed by a Sauder Business school student; we are hosting events like Bar Method exercise program, Mountain Equipment Coop sessions this fall on bike safety, hiking and outdoor snow sports; we have added specific logo wear for Sauder School of Business, Arts Faculty, Alumni, T-Bird; and coming soon - new tables and comfortable chairs in the old bargain book area.
Services: IT Services help desk moved into our store Aug. 23 to provide students with advice on getting connected.
Frequency: Installed a free cell phone charging station; added ice cream to our sales mix; advertising the store as a gathering space; expanded candy offerings; Bookstore Café - renamed the cafe in the store for better recognition.
Staff is also talking about ideas to connect them to 2015 in their annual reviews which is exciting because it directly links them to the key strategies.
I think that any store can use this material to provide their staff with steps to move into the future in a positive, proactive way. The future can be exciting as long as everyone sees the possibilities!
- Debbie Harvie