The campus bookstore is often the first stop when looking for required books and course materials. Even before they visit the store’s physical location in the Clark Student Center, ads and emails direct students to buy books from the campus bookstore as soon as they register for classes online. For these reasons students consider the bookstore, run by Follett, the most convenient, but often the most costly, option.
Students can rent or buy from the bookstore website or shop in person. Shipping to the bookstore is free and students receive an email when their books are ready to be picked up. At the end of the semester, students just have to turn any rentals back in at the bookstore.
Renting through the campus bookstore also eliminates a lot of the risk involved with using other companies. If for some reason a student realizes they don’t need their book or their professor changes the required book, the student could lose money. This isn’t the case at the campus store, according to bookstore manager Jenny Denning.
“If they bought that book from us, we’re going to take care of them immediately. We’re going to get that different book in quickly and get them ready to go for class. If we made a mistake, we’re going to give them a refund immediately. We’re going to take care of them right now,” Denning said.
However, for students like Tinashe Maisiri, business junior, buying books was more a matter of convenience than customer service.
“I go to the bookstore just because of convenience,” Maisiri said.
Yet despite these conveniences, many students still turn to cheaper alternatives online from websites like Amazon or Chegg. Chegg even makes the return process simple by giving their customers a prepaid shipping label to use when sending their books back at the end of the semester.
“I rent them [textbooks] from Chegg. Sometimes from the bookstore, but only if it’s cheaper,” Camisha Johnson, international studies junior, said.
Like Johnson, many students’ main concern when shopping for books is price, causing bookstores and publishers to offer exclusive study resources, online tutoring, and supplemental material to entice cash-strapped scholars into buying their products.
In recent years, more students have turned to illegally downloading their books or photocopying a friend’s book. Downloading a textbook without paying for it is just as illegal as stealing the book off the bookstore’s shelf, but a July 2014 study by the Book Industry Study Group said more than a quarter of surveyed students admitted to illegally downloading books, or knowing someone who has, up 8 percent from the previous year.
In a more offensive effort to compete last September, Follett threatened to sue a start-up called Texts.com over their Google Chrome plug-in OccupyTheBookstore. The tool allows students to compare prices for textbooks on their campus bookstore’s website to sites like Amazon, Chegg, and SlugBooks without ever leaving their bookstore’s site. Follett previously had an advantage over these discounted sites because students were easily directed to the bookstore’s site. If they wanted to check prices at other vendors, they would have to search on their own. Now, with this plug-in, students can view a variety of options from the moment they see their required books.
For now, the campus bookstore is still very successful, according to Denning.
“We had a great fall. We had a good increase but of course any time that there’s an increase in enrollment, a lot of new freshmen, we’re going to have an increase,” Denning said.
As the textbook industry continues to change according to the demands of the student, retail college booksellers like Follett will also have to rethink their niche.
“That’s why at the bookstore, we’re not just textbooks. We offer so many more services, so many more options,” Denning said. “You’ve got to change with what your customer wants and how they want to receive their merchandise.”
