There are not many “CAMEX questions” left – and those that remain are a bit more complex or challenging to answer in the space of a blog post. This week’s question relates to campus relationships with administration.
Q. How do I convince my administration that they need to partner with the bookstore to develop digital strategies for the future? Is there a ‘how to” from other schools?
Good questions. The answer to the first question likely depends on many factors such as school size, reporting structure, how the store has traditionally been positioned on campus, etc.. On the second question, I am not aware of a “how to” guide, but NACS does have some resources for members on how to engage different groups on campus. There is the communications toolkit, which includes templates and questions for talking with different administrative groups on campus. There are new resources and case studies being built relative to the College Store of 2015 initiative within the Foundation. Additional resources are in development.
If your store currently has little partnership with the campus administration, then now is an excellent time to start. Relationships are built on trust, and building trust takes time. Work on building relationships long before you need them.
One tactic you can use is to find out what initiatives are underway on campus. Likely pockets of activity are in IT (look for instructional designers or folks who work in academic computing), or in the library.
Look at your current textbook adoptions compared to prior years. Which faculty use technology (e.g., MyMathLab or clickers) or an open source textbook? Has a textbook adoption disappeared?
Is the faculty member using nothing, or are they using materials put on e-reserve in the library, placed elsewhere, or being acquired directly from the content provider.
Another tactic is to become a resource expert for your administration on digital course materials. Point them to good articles or resources on the transition to digital: case studies of what other campuses or bookstores have done; trend reports; reports on other technologies or experiments; or industry analysis.
Another approach to building expertise is to sponsor or help coordinate a campus or committee meeting on digital course materials strategy. There are multiple ways to approach this depending on your school size and type, along with other factors. Consider inviting an administrator to a webinar or meeting. We have conducted digital sessions for a fair number of institutions and are likely to do so again in the future as time and other resources permit.
Put some skin in the game – innovation is a contact sport. Experiment with digital or communicate to administration how you are helping reduce the cost of course materials – or what you are learning from digital sales and experiments at your store or others.
Remember to be optimistic yet realistic. Convey that you have a positive sense of urgency about the role of digital course materials and your store’s willingness to be part of the future and solution. Also articulate the strengths your store brings to the table that explain why you ought to be a part of that future. People like solution providers more than obstructionists. If you find yourself arguing that something cannot be done make sure you are not doing so because that is the way you have always done things.
There are many other tactics to consider and I ask readers to share their ideas here, via email, or on NACS listservs. I think the above boil down to some key concepts:
(1) Adopt a winning mindset (and think like a retailer).
(2) Be a resource and point of expertise.
(3) Find out who the influencers are on your campus relative to digital.
(4) Experiment.
(5) Think of your job as store advocates – to students, faculty, and administration.
Good luck, and thanks for a great question.
Showing posts with label CAMEX Questions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CAMEX Questions. Show all posts
Friday, June 10, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
CAMEX questions answered: marketing
This week's question provides a good example from a store of "why digital," the importance of relationships, market share orientation, and other topics:
Q. We have had good relationships with our publishers and faculty in crossing the digital divide hand in hand. We have come to find that the MyLab products and other digital content have helped secure market share and lower prices at the same time. We even have created displays to highlight those ebook products to our students. [Example provided with data on sell-through, savings for students, and percent of market share captured]. Has NACS looked at in-store merchandising, loss prevention, and in-store promotion material for publisher's ebook options?
Thanks for your question. It sounds like you have started off in the right direction -- building positive relationships, paying attention to market share in addition to margins, and thinking about how to merchandise digital products as something different from traditional products.
To answer your direct question, yes, we have thought about some of these questions. In particular the in-store merchandising and in-store promotion materials. In fact, we convened a short-term task force who helped us develop a first phase marketing toolkit for stores. That toolkit was about 85-90% complete, but then stalled with the departure of the key staff person who managed the project. It is our intention to resurrect that project later this year as the task force did some excellent work and we do not want that information to be lost or go unshared with stores.
We have observed that the stores who report higher sell-through on digital content are typically the ones who provide more transactional education to students about what they are buying when they buy the digital option. Students know what they are getting when they get the physical printed textbook. The same is often not the case with digital. Different DRM, different licensing terms, different user experience, and other differences between products in the same category make it a more complex (and potentially less satisfying) purchasing decision.
I saw a statistic earlier this week that reported consumers weigh trust as nearly 10x more important than price when making an online purchasing decision. The same is true, in a sense, with digital. Students are not as sure of what they are buying (they trust the product less) and so are more reticent to purchase. Stores that have recognized this challenge and provided educational information have seen sell-through on digital sometimes up to double the typical average. This educational information can be displayed in a number of ways -- whether comparison details on an in-store sign or terminal, explanatory information provided along with the student course list, or creating a "demo-bar" concept to let students "see what they are buying."
Because of differences among products, the transaction cost of selling digital is higher for retailers because it requires more education of the consumer. Focus your in-store marketing efforts in that direction and you should see some success. Beyond that, our marketing toolkit initiative looked at a variety of methods to promote digital options in-store, and again, we hope to get those resources out to stores later this year.
A final quick note -- the question also asked about loss prevention. This is not an area we have looked at closely as it relates to digital options. Perhaps some of the other readers on this list have some suggestions to share -- either marketing ideas or ideas for loss prevention.
Friday, April 15, 2011
CAMEX questions answered: ebook sales
Week 5 post-CAMEX, and there are still a number of questions to answer on different topics. This week I thought I would address a couple of questions related to selling e-books. Upcoming topics in the next few weeks include questions related to m-commerce, the digital content platform project, publisher relations, campus relations, and getting staff ready for change.
Q1. I have no POS, can I sell e-books?
No POS? That will limit your options, but not cut you out of the game. The real question is probably, do you have ecommerce capability? Even that might not be a show stopper. There are options for stores that will allow you to sell ebooks online, where there is no need to integrate to an in-store POS or an existing ecommerce system. For example, you could work with the ABA's Indie Commerce solution or NACSCORP's My Books & More program with Baker & Taylor. These solutions are really tailored for smaller stores without an extensive ecommerce or POS capability. B&N, Follett, MBS, and others all have virtual bookstore options that can sell e-books online as well.
Q2. What percent of a title is usually sold as an e-book?
That can vary greatly, depending on a variety of factors, such as: (a) the title; (b) the faculty member; (c) how the store educates the student about the purchase decision; (d) the price; (e) availability of other options (e.g., number of used books, rental option, etc.); (f) demographic profile of your students; (g) DRM applied to the text; and the list goes on.
All of that being said, average sell-though right now looks like about 2-3%. We have seen a number of examples well over 30%, and even a few over 90%, but those are still more of the exception. E-book title availability is mostly within the large adoptions, and we did hear from a few schools this semester where the faculty member switched to an open source textbook for a large adoption, thus having big pick-up in digital adoption and subsequent impact on sales. This dynamic should be considered in your contingency planning processes and is likely to increase in the coming years with the current emphasis and funding for open source textbooks.
Friday, April 1, 2011
CAMEX questions answered: publisher relations
This week marks the fourth week post CAMEX (yes, a month has passed already). Each Friday I am posting questions attendeess submitted to my session at that meeting. At my current rate of a few questions each Friday, I probably still have another two months worth of Friday postings before I have answered all of the questions. So if you are waiting for your question to be answered, feel free to drop me an email for a quick response, or keep coming back and I will get to all of the questions submitted. This week's question(s) relate to some publisher relations topics:
Q1. I have had trouble getting e-book versions of traditional textbooks from major publishers, but they will sell the e-version directly to students. How can we overcome this?
Q1. I have had trouble getting e-book versions of traditional textbooks from major publishers, but they will sell the e-version directly to students. How can we overcome this?
A. Are you talking directly to publishers for individual titles? That could be a challenge. Have you considered working with CourseSmart or a similar company who has the content? Or are you working with your POS provider and their program for e-books? The question has some gaps in it, making it a little difficult to fully answer. In general though, if the major publisher has the digital title being offered directly to students, the content is most likely available through other channels as well to which you may have access (e.g., your POS provider or CourseSmart), so at this point I would probably start there. Publishers are unlikely to serve up great volumes of digital content directly to stores because most stores are not equipped to directly handle the files and their security, and because if publishers did this for all titles across all campuses, it would quickly become somewhat unweildy. The best way for us to overcome this is to work as a channel to define common points of aggregation and common standards for accessing and managing the files. Our (NMS's) efforts with other groups (e.g., CCRA [Canada] and ICBA) is one example of an industry or channel-based initiative to address parts of this challenge. We refer to this initiative as DCP or Digital Content Platform.
Q2. Some publishers still take 6-8 weeks for POD titles. Can we/you influence them to decrease this time period?
A. By POD titles, I am assuming you mean custom titles -- or do you mean access to titles that you can use for in-store POD? Regardless, we (NMS) do have an initiative in this area which we hope will help to decrease some of the supply chain delays and inefficiencies. We are testing this out in an alpha phase currently, and plan to launch a set of defined pilots this summer as part of the beta phase. Assuming all works well with our initial test and the summer pilots, we plan to begin expanding our tests in Fall 2011 and widen the offering to more stores starting in 2012.
Q3. What or how is NMS working with publishers relating to platforms?
A. Well, the answer to that lies in the answers to the two questions above. We have several projects or efforts underway or being investigated. Our two main areas of interest are the digital content platform (DCP) and regional print-on-demand (R-POD). As these initiatives begin to move from pilot to production this year we will be providing stores with more information. The point is that we are working with publishers on content initiatives that cover both print and digital technologies.
Friday, March 18, 2011
CAMEX questions answered: Open learning/access
This week's question from CAMEX is about open learning or open access course materials. For the short and direct answer to the question, read only the first paragraph. For the longer and more complete answer, read the full text.
Q. How much impact will I expect from the open learning component of digital delivery?
A. My expectation is that open access course materials (OACM) will grow to probably 10% of the course material market over the next several years. However, as with much of the digital movement, the focus is on the largest textbook adoptions where the impact will be greatest. That means the spread of open access textbooks could affect college store revenues -- which in turn translates into an impact on the financial aid and student services budgets on many campuses.
As an anecdotal example, I heard from one community college yesterday where the administration was apparently surprised by the financial impact that occured to the store's contributions to the institution's budget this spring when some faculty moved their large textbook adoptions to an OACM option. We heard a similar story last year from another large university where the move of one of their largest textbook adoptions to a free, online OACM option had a net impact of close to US$1M on the financial aid budget. OACM is likely here to stay, and so campus administrations should begin to plan for that to have some financial impact.
The open access movement has some strengths and weaknesses. On the strength side, it is an active approach to reducing the cost of course materials. Like the dot-com and real-estate bubbles before it, the textbook and tuition bubbles cannot keep going up forever. At some point these bubbles will pop and the models will have to change. The OACM movement, whether by design or accident, will focus greater attention on the interconnection between these two bubbles. The supporters of the OACM movement have been very vocal, aggressive, and active in getting changes in legislation and grant support. They have been very good as a movement in getting their point heard and supported. Unfortunately, this is not always done with accurate information.
On the weakness side, much of the OACM movement has yet to prove itself as sustainable over the long term. Will grant money and federal support continue forever? Again, while there are very notable exceptions, much of the movement has challenges with quality control and accessibility for students with disabilities. The latter is a challenge for several segments of the digital course materials movement and not just OACM. Hopefully some of the grant and federal dollars put into OACM will focus on developing more long-term sustainability models and not just short term textbook replacements. This is an area where the college store community could and should contribute and actively participate.
The OACM movement has produced some wins for nearly all parties -- reducing cost of course materials, while producing some quality course materials and revenue opportunities. Do not forget, while companies like FlatWorld are frequently held up as the "poster child" for OACM, they are still a for-profit company and have at least some expectation of building a business model that will be at least self-sustaining if not profitable.
With all of the above in consideration, NACS and the college store community -- particularly but not exclusively in the community college space -- have been serving a positive role in supporting the open access course material movement. Here are a few examples, which is only a small set of our industry’s activity in this area:
If you have not seen it, you should take a look at EDUCAUSE's recent "7 things you should know about..." piece on open access course materials. Initially it contained a factual error regarding bookstores, which has subsequently been corrected. I raise this point because college stores collectively have not been good in communicating what they are doing with open access course materials and that can lead to inaccurate understanding of the role we play and the things we do to try to reduce course material costs for students.
Q. How much impact will I expect from the open learning component of digital delivery?
A. My expectation is that open access course materials (OACM) will grow to probably 10% of the course material market over the next several years. However, as with much of the digital movement, the focus is on the largest textbook adoptions where the impact will be greatest. That means the spread of open access textbooks could affect college store revenues -- which in turn translates into an impact on the financial aid and student services budgets on many campuses.
As an anecdotal example, I heard from one community college yesterday where the administration was apparently surprised by the financial impact that occured to the store's contributions to the institution's budget this spring when some faculty moved their large textbook adoptions to an OACM option. We heard a similar story last year from another large university where the move of one of their largest textbook adoptions to a free, online OACM option had a net impact of close to US$1M on the financial aid budget. OACM is likely here to stay, and so campus administrations should begin to plan for that to have some financial impact.
The open access movement has some strengths and weaknesses. On the strength side, it is an active approach to reducing the cost of course materials. Like the dot-com and real-estate bubbles before it, the textbook and tuition bubbles cannot keep going up forever. At some point these bubbles will pop and the models will have to change. The OACM movement, whether by design or accident, will focus greater attention on the interconnection between these two bubbles. The supporters of the OACM movement have been very vocal, aggressive, and active in getting changes in legislation and grant support. They have been very good as a movement in getting their point heard and supported. Unfortunately, this is not always done with accurate information.
On the weakness side, much of the OACM movement has yet to prove itself as sustainable over the long term. Will grant money and federal support continue forever? Again, while there are very notable exceptions, much of the movement has challenges with quality control and accessibility for students with disabilities. The latter is a challenge for several segments of the digital course materials movement and not just OACM. Hopefully some of the grant and federal dollars put into OACM will focus on developing more long-term sustainability models and not just short term textbook replacements. This is an area where the college store community could and should contribute and actively participate.
The OACM movement has produced some wins for nearly all parties -- reducing cost of course materials, while producing some quality course materials and revenue opportunities. Do not forget, while companies like FlatWorld are frequently held up as the "poster child" for OACM, they are still a for-profit company and have at least some expectation of building a business model that will be at least self-sustaining if not profitable.
With all of the above in consideration, NACS and the college store community -- particularly but not exclusively in the community college space -- have been serving a positive role in supporting the open access course material movement. Here are a few examples, which is only a small set of our industry’s activity in this area:
It is the mission of most college stores to provide students with all course materials required to be successful in the classroom, regardless of whether or not those course materials are free. Many college stores work very hard to reduce the cost of textbooks for students. This is information stores MUST get better at communicating to both their internal and external communities.• The NACS board formally adopted a policy statement in support of the OACM movement more than two years ago.
• We have initiatives within NACS, and its subsidiary NACS Media Solutions, that have specifically focused on helping the open access movement become more sustainable by making it easier to distribute those materials through the college store channel. As one example, we conducted a pilot with FlatWorld Knowledge last semester, and are expanding our efforts to include other open access course material providers.
• As recently as last week we highlighted one of our community college store directors who has actively encouraged faculty on his campus to consider and adopt open access course materials and other options to reduce textbook prices.• At CAMEX this year, our annual educational event, we had at least four sessions that directly addressed open access course materials and provided stores with information on how to get involved.
If you have not seen it, you should take a look at EDUCAUSE's recent "7 things you should know about..." piece on open access course materials. Initially it contained a factual error regarding bookstores, which has subsequently been corrected. I raise this point because college stores collectively have not been good in communicating what they are doing with open access course materials and that can lead to inaccurate understanding of the role we play and the things we do to try to reduce course material costs for students.
Friday, March 11, 2011
CAMEX questions answered: rental
This week's CAMEX questions relate to textbook rental. Here are two questions representative of the ones submitted on this topic:
Q1. Has rental deterred stores from progressing as they should in digital?
Q2. Is rental a short-lived/temporary solution?
Both good questions. The first question is the more complicated to address, and in doing so, much of the second question will also be touched upon. I will apologize in advance for some of the "doom and gloom" that follows. If a different question had been posed, I probably could have inserted more optimism for how we could leverage rental to be more successful at digital, and in business in general, as collegiate retailers.
A1. Related to the first question -- yes, I have heard that some stores believe that "rental will save them." Personally, in my opinion this is a flawed assumption. Certainly there are benefits to rental programs. They can reduce course material costs for students. They can be a source of positive PR on campus. Certainly there are a growing number of programs and offerings that make it easier for stores to offer rental programs with less risk (although depending on the approach taken by a store, less risk is not guaranteed). Rental can be a means to both recapture market share and increase store foot traffic. With these benefits, it is not surprising to see that the number of college stores in North America offering rental programs has soared from roughly 300 to over 2400 in less than two years, and we expect the number to be even higher by this fall. From a market share perspective, rental has negatively affected digital sales within stores, leading some stores to conclude that digital is even further off from the mainstream.
The last two sets of stats provide an interesting challenge, though. Rental programs have been around for more than 40 years at some schools, yet very few schools participated in these programs prior to two years ago. When the right set of enabling factors arise a technology, in this case rental, can take off remarkably fast. What happens when the right set of enabling factors come on stage for digital? Will stores be able to make that transition as quickly?
Relatively speaking, rental is fairly easy to implement given some of the program options out there today for stores. Programs like those offered by Chegg, BookRenter, Follett, and others help leverage and dissipate risk across the industry. While there are contracts involved, the transaction is still fairly easy to understand and students know how to use the product once received.
In contrast, consider digital products. These are far more complex and often require more education at the point of transaction for the consumer to be able to utilize the product. Could the industry make the shift to provide digital products effectively as quickly? Adoption by stores seems to have stalled somewhere in the early majority, but with the right set of enabling factors, it could move toward larger adoption quickly. Stores and the channel would be unwise to deter experiments or establishing the necessary infrastructure just because rental is currently providing a short reprieve.
The effect of rental on used is just the ebbing of the tide that warns us about the tsunami that digital could create. A bit extreme, but both possible and plausible if digital were to take off as quickly as rental has in the past two years.
A2. Related to the second question, let me answer it by proposing a different question to consider: is rental a bridge technology?
Let me explain what I mean by a bridge technology. While we refer to digital as a "subscription," the actual business model is not much different from the rental model. Rental models change the mindset of the student to accept business models where they pay a price and get their savings up front, and then get nothing when they return the product at the end of its lifecycle. With one catch: we have seen stats that up to 20% of students fail to return their rental book, resulting in charges for the replacement book at the new book price. If I were a publisher, I might consider a sales pitch along the following lines: digital textbook rentals -- more convenient than physical book rentals, because at the end of the rental period the book returns itself. As physical book rentals get a new business model embedded in the mind of students -- a business model that looks a lot like many of the current digital textbook business models -- then yet another enabling factor for digital will be in place.
So if rental is a bridge technology, like print-on-demand (POD) in my opinion, then it probably has a 5-10 year lifespan where it will have effective returns in this market. It may extend market share and the role of the store, but at the same time it further enables the transition to digital. Stores might be able to concentrate more on rental for the next year, maybe two. At the same time they have to be looking ahead to how they will participate in the digital environment that is coming. That means improved e-commerce and m-commerce capability, and the ability to be format and device agnostic providers of content. That is something few if any traditional college stores are ready for today, but that the industry must be ready for in the near future. Rental, like POD, might buy the industry a small amount of breathing room, but they are relatively short-term rather than long-term solutions to the radical innovation challenges ahead.
Q1. Has rental deterred stores from progressing as they should in digital?
Q2. Is rental a short-lived/temporary solution?
Both good questions. The first question is the more complicated to address, and in doing so, much of the second question will also be touched upon. I will apologize in advance for some of the "doom and gloom" that follows. If a different question had been posed, I probably could have inserted more optimism for how we could leverage rental to be more successful at digital, and in business in general, as collegiate retailers.
A1. Related to the first question -- yes, I have heard that some stores believe that "rental will save them." Personally, in my opinion this is a flawed assumption. Certainly there are benefits to rental programs. They can reduce course material costs for students. They can be a source of positive PR on campus. Certainly there are a growing number of programs and offerings that make it easier for stores to offer rental programs with less risk (although depending on the approach taken by a store, less risk is not guaranteed). Rental can be a means to both recapture market share and increase store foot traffic. With these benefits, it is not surprising to see that the number of college stores in North America offering rental programs has soared from roughly 300 to over 2400 in less than two years, and we expect the number to be even higher by this fall. From a market share perspective, rental has negatively affected digital sales within stores, leading some stores to conclude that digital is even further off from the mainstream.
The last two sets of stats provide an interesting challenge, though. Rental programs have been around for more than 40 years at some schools, yet very few schools participated in these programs prior to two years ago. When the right set of enabling factors arise a technology, in this case rental, can take off remarkably fast. What happens when the right set of enabling factors come on stage for digital? Will stores be able to make that transition as quickly?
Relatively speaking, rental is fairly easy to implement given some of the program options out there today for stores. Programs like those offered by Chegg, BookRenter, Follett, and others help leverage and dissipate risk across the industry. While there are contracts involved, the transaction is still fairly easy to understand and students know how to use the product once received.
In contrast, consider digital products. These are far more complex and often require more education at the point of transaction for the consumer to be able to utilize the product. Could the industry make the shift to provide digital products effectively as quickly? Adoption by stores seems to have stalled somewhere in the early majority, but with the right set of enabling factors, it could move toward larger adoption quickly. Stores and the channel would be unwise to deter experiments or establishing the necessary infrastructure just because rental is currently providing a short reprieve.
The effect of rental on used is just the ebbing of the tide that warns us about the tsunami that digital could create. A bit extreme, but both possible and plausible if digital were to take off as quickly as rental has in the past two years.
A2. Related to the second question, let me answer it by proposing a different question to consider: is rental a bridge technology?
Let me explain what I mean by a bridge technology. While we refer to digital as a "subscription," the actual business model is not much different from the rental model. Rental models change the mindset of the student to accept business models where they pay a price and get their savings up front, and then get nothing when they return the product at the end of its lifecycle. With one catch: we have seen stats that up to 20% of students fail to return their rental book, resulting in charges for the replacement book at the new book price. If I were a publisher, I might consider a sales pitch along the following lines: digital textbook rentals -- more convenient than physical book rentals, because at the end of the rental period the book returns itself. As physical book rentals get a new business model embedded in the mind of students -- a business model that looks a lot like many of the current digital textbook business models -- then yet another enabling factor for digital will be in place.
So if rental is a bridge technology, like print-on-demand (POD) in my opinion, then it probably has a 5-10 year lifespan where it will have effective returns in this market. It may extend market share and the role of the store, but at the same time it further enables the transition to digital. Stores might be able to concentrate more on rental for the next year, maybe two. At the same time they have to be looking ahead to how they will participate in the digital environment that is coming. That means improved e-commerce and m-commerce capability, and the ability to be format and device agnostic providers of content. That is something few if any traditional college stores are ready for today, but that the industry must be ready for in the near future. Rental, like POD, might buy the industry a small amount of breathing room, but they are relatively short-term rather than long-term solutions to the radical innovation challenges ahead.
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