Taking Back Textbook Sales

There are plenty of reasons for college stores to consider offering a virtual online solution for course materials. The model can reduce costs while providing guaranteed commissions to make up for some of the lost revenue. The newfound space created by the absence of textbooks can also be dedicated to merchandise that produce higher margins.

The Florence O. Wilson Bookstore, The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH, gave the hybrid model a try, but soon discovered that a virtual solution was actually keeping students away. After two semesters, the store decided to offer textbooks again because a branded website with competitive prices simply became another place for Wooster students to search instead of the place to go for course materials.

“College stores have long provided value, serving faculty and students in equal measure with technology, processes, and expertise to support the academic needs of the institution,” Director Kevin Leitner, CCR, wrote in a LinkedIn post. “The hybrid model, while it offers some advantages, puts a college store in danger of disintermediation and irrelevance, the ultimate danger to a college store.”

Editor’s note: The CITE will be on hiatus as the NACS offices and warehouse in in Oberlin, Westlake, and Cincinnati, OH, as well as in California and Washington, D.C., are closed the week of Dec. 26-Jan. 2. Look for the next post to appear on Jan. 4, 2017. From all the staff of NACS Inc., have a safe and happy holiday season.

Newegg Joins Textbook Market

The newest player in the college textbook market is familiar to many college students. Electronics online retailer Newegg Inc. said it is “partnering with more than 1,000 colleges” and has already opened a student-only online store that offers special discounts and pricing options.

Newegg’s student-only section does require a login, but the company is offering students $20 off its annual Newegg Premier membership, which provides free shipping, members-only deals, and a dedicated customer-service line. The effort is part of Newegg’s effort to expand its business by tapping into the education market.

“Textbooks are pretty fundamental to the college student, and we wanted to offer a different solution that makes buying them more convenient and more economical,” James Wu, chief operating officer for Newegg North America, said in an article for Internet Retailer.

Tech Buyers Want Multichannel Options

Most college students love the latest electronic gadget and many will be in the market for something new this holiday season. A new report on retail technology trends found most buyers like shopping both online and in-store and aren’t that interested in wearable tech yet.

Purch, an online publishing company, surveyed more than 3,000 “tech enthusiasts” to track consumer-technology buying trends and identify top brands. It found that 74% of respondents planned to shop both online and in stores for their tech purchases, while just 4% said they would limit their shopping to traditional bricks-and-mortar locations.

Smartphones, laptops, and tablets were the top product categories. Half of the respondents said they would buy a Samsung product, followed by Asus (40%), Microsoft (38%), and Apple (28%). Fewer than 10% of the respondents said they would consider a smartwatch (9%) or fitness device (8%).

The report found that tech consumers relied on product reviews (86%) and articles by experts (74%) to help them make their buying decisions. Social media (18%) and advertising (12%) were at the bottom of the sources list.

“Consumers value a multichannel shopping environment and they look to product reviews and expert content to guide their purchase decisions,” said Purch CEO Greg Mason. “You can’t deny the authority and influences these resources have on technology enthusiasts in particular.”

Shoppers Start on Desktop, Move to Mobile

Mobile shoppers seem to take a try-before-you-buy approach, according to the findings of a new study on m-commerce.

According to the MobileShopTalk blog on MediaPost, the latest Custora E-Commerce Pulse survey found that 76% of online consumers still use only a desktop computer to make their purchases, with the rest shopping on a mobile device or a combination of devices.

“One of the interesting insights in the study is that once consumers trust a retailer after their first desktop transaction, they’re more willing to make repeat purchases on a mobile device,” said blogger Chuck Martin.

Also something of a surprise were the ways that consumers shop on their smartphones. Survey results showed that 27% of purchases via smartphones were prompted by email promotions. Another 33% were derived from shoppers who went straight to a specific retailer’s m-commerce site.

The Custora survey estimates mobile commerce may reach $50 billion by the end of 2014. Compare that to the puny $2 billion mobile market back in 2010.

Don't Track Me by Phone, Shoppers Say

Lots of people possess smartphones and use mobile apps for a variety of purposes, but that doesn’t mean they’re altogether comfortable with shopping apps that track their whereabouts and text promotional messages.

This type of app has been touted as the next big thing for retailers, as it allows them to follow customers while they shop and tempt them with offers if they’re nearby. However, a survey of 3,000 mobile app users indicates shoppers are a little creeped out by that prospect.

More than 71% of respondents said they don’t want merchants to track them via smartphone. They were a little more receptive to getting push notifications with special offers—only 56% overall were against such messages, although more Apple iOS users than others were willing to receive them. Even so, most of the survey takers didn’t know anything about Apple’s new iBeacon technology, which enables retailers to send notifications to customers while they’re in the physical store.

Despite considerable news coverage of near field communications technology, only 38% of respondents were familiar with it and fewer than 6% actually use it for contactless payments.

The survey was conducted by a company, Retale, that may have reason to be pleased by the results. Retale helps participating retailers get their traditional sales circulars—the kind typically inserted in print newspapers or mailed directly to homes—into shoppers’ hands by aggregating them online by geographical location.

Retail Coupons Find New Life Online

Brand manufacturers and bricks-and-mortar retailers used to run coupons in newspapers and other print media to entice customers with discounts and special offers. Some still do. However, since many people shop and read online now, the coupons have gone digital, too.

The first digital coupons that appeared on websites and in email resembled their newspaper predecessors, complete with dotted borders. The latest types of digital coupons have evolved quite a bit.

That’s Biz, a marketing solutions company that makes coupon apps for smartphones, just released a new system that enables restaurants and stores to post coupon offers on a Facebook page for customers to text to their smartphones. Customers just have to show the coupon on the phone screen when they visit the retailer. They can also share it with friends. The system allows the merchant to put time limits on the coupon or restrict the number of times an individual can use it, without having to involve the store’s main point-of-sale system.

There are many websites, such as FatWallet, that offer a wide variety of downloadable product coupons in cooperation with manufacturers and retail chains. Coupons.com recently began letting consumers “link” selected coupons to a registered credit or debit card with the discount automatically applied at the point of purchase in the store (although they can also be used for online shopping).

Some coupon sites are experimenting with gamification as a way to attract interest and give customers a means to earn additional discount points. No Kidding Coupons, a new site, says its members can earn coupons for online purchases up to 99% off by reviewing products and promoting ones they like. However, unless you register, the site is a little cagey about what brands are participating.

Blackboard Opening Virtual Campus Store

Blackboard is branching out, testing a virtual bookstore within its learning management system that allows faculty to choose content and students to buy online. Content offered will run the gamut of new, used, rental, e-text, open source, and material faculty members produce themselves.

The store is designed to provide students with the required content for all their classes in a shopping cart ready for checkout. Blackboard is working with MBS Direct to provide the content.

The bookstore service is being tested on about a dozen campuses this spring and will expand in the summer, according to a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“We simply thought there was room for something different: A convenient, student-focused option designed specifically to support the educational experience,” Blackboard CEO Jay Bhatt told The Washington Post. “Students already use their learning platform to find out which materials they will need for their courses. It just makes sense that they should be able to buy or rent the materials in the same environment without having to go somewhere else or having to worry about whether they are getting the right items.”

Bigger is Better, Say Mobile Shoppers

Given the choice, many people would rather view a full-sized e-commerce site on their smartphone or tablet than a mobile-optimized version scaled to the smaller screen.

Bill Siwicki, a managing editor at Internet Retailer, comments that he discovered this bit of counterintuitive intelligence by chance. He was browsing an e-commerce site on his phone when a pop-up offered to switch to the mobile site. His response: “Of course I want your mobile commerce web site on my iPhone. I don’t want to have to pinch and zoom and swipe like mad to try to make sense of the huge desktop site on my small smartphone screen. Are you crazy?”

That’s not the response most users give, however. Siwicki found that a new study conducted last October by Retail Systems Research shows more than half of consumers bypass mobile e-commerce sites to view the full site on their mobile device. The study didn’t specifically ask consumers why they do this, but an analyst with the research company told Siwicki that it’s probably because too many mobile sites have been overly simplified, leaving out too many features and content that visitors want to access.

Another reason may be that some consumers are more familiar with the full site and know just where to go with minimal zooming and swiping on a mobile device.

Either way, it indicates that many online retailers “who believe they have great mobile sites actually have more work to do to make shopping mobile-optimized sites on smartphones more appealing,” Siwicki writes.

Young Adults Not So Web-Wary

Here is more evidence that young adults have difficulty distinguishing between valid web sites and bogus ones: A survey commissioned by the citizens watchdog group Digital Citizens Alliance showed that 18- to 24-year-olds are much more likely to get stiffed when buying merchandise online, usually because they’re less able to spot a shady web seller.

The survey was conducted Nov. 14 by Zogby Analytics and specifically asked respondents about online shopping for gifts. The results, though, showed that a whopping 35% of the youngest adult group had not received at least one online gift order (compared to just 18% for all age groups). Of those, almost 60% also didn’t get a refund for the no-show order.

Why young adults are more apt to be victimized becomes clearer when you look at their shopping habits. More than 80% of all shoppers make sure they’re ordering from secure web sites, but only 60% of young adults bother to do so. More young adults are drawn to shop at sites offering super-cheap prices—which too often are sites run by scammers. While older shoppers balk at great deals that seem too good to be true or when the seller is unknown, younger adults haven’t yet developed that sort of radar.

This survey correlates to other studies on how college students conduct online research for schoolwork and papers. Students, especially those in their first year, are less able to discern whether online information sources are knowledgeable and trustworthy.

Younger adults may spend a lot of time online, both studying and shopping, but they apparently need instruction in separating the bad sites from the good.

Stores Should Provide Free WiFi

Instead of being worried about showrooming, retailers should provide free Wi-Fi to encourage shoppers do even more online browsing, according to a new study from Acquity Group. The survey found that half of the responding smartphone owners are more confident making major purchases when they can use free in-store Wi-Fi to research a product.

The report also found that 30% of smartphone owners would browse for additional items to buy and 20% would spend more time shopping if stores offered free Wi-Fi. More than 1,500 smartphone owners were surveyed for the study, which also showed that 78% looked up a retailer’s inventory online prior to visiting the store and 60% said they made in-store purchases after browsing for product images and information on their phone.

“Your site has to be mobile-optimized and you need to make access to Wi-Fi easy,” said Mark Rein, group account director at Acquity Group, in an article in Marketing Daily. “In-store Wi-Fi also tends to keep customers in the store longer, where they’ll view—and be more likely to purchase—items not on their list.”

CourseSmart Launches Subscription Plan

CourseSmart has launched a way for students to choose e-textbooks for one flat fee. CourseSmart Subscription Packs allow students to purchase course materials for a fixed access period instead of the traditional a la carte model.

Students use the subscription plan to buy six bookshelf slots for $200 and choose from the CourseSmart catalog of more than 40,000 e-textbook titles. The access period for the slots is 150 days, during which students have unlimited access, both online and offline, on iOS and Android devices, as well as through mobile web apps.

The subscription also allows students to search e-textbooks by keyword or through the CourseSmart bookshelf. It also lets them highlight and take notes within the e-text, which can be compiled into a study guide that links back to original textbook pages.

“I added all of the books I needed to my bookshelf and it was extremely easy and a huge savings for me,” said Krista Burris, a student at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. 

E-Tailers Try Out Same-Day Delivery

Some major retail companies are testing same-day delivery of online orders, according to the National Retail Federation’s Stores magazine. Even though consumers haven’t been clamoring for such a service yet, these companies apparently think it’s just a matter of time before they do.

That’s because free delivery is the main thing that induces shoppers to buy more online, even more than lower prices, or so says Baden Consulting Group’s 2012 consumer survey. Free delivery in two to 10 days has become so pervasive that some people won’t shop at sites without it. Before long, they might have the same attitude about same-day delivery.

Same-day service is most likely to be successful in urban areas where companies already have stores, warehouses, and/or suppliers in close proximity to a higher concentration of purchasers. From the consumer perspective, it should be fairly easy to process web orders, pull and pack the merchandise, and deliver the whole shebang to their door within a few hours, if not sooner.

Companies know there’s much more to the logistics than that, but consumer perception may prevail—especially since it’s the coveted millennials age group (18-34) that’s been using same-day delivery the most so far. Some 12.5% of millennials use same-day delivery “very frequently,” the Stores article noted, compared to only 4.2% of all consumers.

Colleges and universities should take notice. Like urban cities, campuses are packed with millennials. If Amazon and Walmart can manage same-day delivery, what’s to keep millennial students from fully expecting the same from the campus bookstore, food service, library, convenience store, tech shop, snack bar, or any other campus enterprise?