To Save Its Campus Bookstore, This University Took It Online
We know that school college students’ tastes for digital companies have the facility to make firms snap to consideration. A current instance is publishing big Pearson’s dive into the world of textbook subscriptions in hopes of constructing itself extra interesting to college students procuring round for the perfect deal.
But what about campus bookstores, which are sometimes tied extra intimately to high schools? How do they compete in an period when college students are completely pleased ordering what they want on-line?
At the University of Alaska Anchorage, the reply was to embrace the altering occasions. Now the its bookstore house is a go-to spot for hoodies, snacks and for school to get some tech help. But there’s a notable absence of 1 factor—textbooks.
The college shifted two years in the past to a totally digital bookstore, one the place school can put up their required studying and college students can place their orders (or maintain procuring round). It’s a change that David Weaver, govt director of Campus Services for the college, says staunched the monetary woes brought on by the flailing bookstore, whereas protecting reasonably priced textbook choices open for its college students.
“Historically we had a nice beautiful brick and mortar bookstore,” Weaver says, with a spot for neighborhood lectures and a small Apple retailer. “The sense of place was lovely for people my age, where that was a part of my undergrad and graduate experience. As time went on, the bookstore came closer and closer to just breaking even.”
The new mannequin, serviced by on-line bookstore platform Akademos, permits college students to view a category’ textbook price earlier than registering for a category. The service can distribute open academic sources, or OER, textbooks which can be accessible to professors and college students without cost. It’s additionally built-in into the college’s cost system, permitting customers to cost books to their scholar account.
“If we aren’t the lowest cost option for that student, affordability trumps our ability to earn revenue from textbook sales,” Weaver says. “If I have a choice between three sections of a course, and one has OER and one has a $200 or $300 textbook, I want to know that because that’s a factor in my choice.”
Niraj Kaji, Akademos CEO, predicts extra universities will comply with Weaver and his establishment’s instance. Campus bookstores are feeling what he calls the “Tower Records effect,” the place ecommerce has made a bodily storefront ineffective. Just as streaming and digital gross sales led to a decline in shops promoting CDs, digital course materials has impacted bookstores.
“About five to 10 years ago, students started to vote with their wallets and decide they’re going to buy their book materials online,” Kaji says, which has led to declining bookstore gross sales.
Kaji says that 5 years in the past, about 8 p.c after all supplies have been digital. Now that quantity has risen to 40 p.c, and he solely sees it rising from there.
The Alaska campus’ on-line bookstore has relieved the college from the sophisticated train of guessing what number of bodily copies of every ebook it wanted to inventory. It’s no easy activity to get pallets of books shipped to Alaska, and Weaver says the college had a troublesome time maintaining with textbook leases supplied by firms like Chegg that have been increasing their maintain in the marketplace. The campus bookstore was operating a deficit within the thousands and thousands by 2019, he provides, and was on the lookout for an answer.
At the identical time, Weaver says college officers have been eager about the burden of textbook prices on college students. Take for instance, he says, a scholar who borrows $1,000 per yr in loans to cowl course supplies. Then multiply that by the 4 or 5 years it is going to take to finish an undergraduate diploma.
“If she comes from a more humble working class or working poor household, which many University of Alaska Anchorage students have, by the time she pays her student loans off, $4,000 to $5,000 in textbooks could have become $10,000,” Weaver posits. “Affordability and transparency, those things trump everything else. That’s what our students want.”
The college’s information helps that. A survey issued to college students this fall reveals that 89 p.c of respondents mentioned they have been reasonably or very glad with the platform. This semester, 40 p.c of scholars bought their books by the web retailer, with the remaining 60 p.c reporting they made their purchases elsewhere, have been assigned OER supplies or had no required textbook. As for the bookstore, it now serves as a normal campus retailer, and its smaller footprint has made house for a scholar enrollment middle.
Beyond affordability, Kaji says the shift to digital course supplies will help universities intervene and help their college students in a approach conventional textbooks can’t. What if digital textbooks might alert a professor or adviser {that a} scholar hasn’t opened their textbook but, and even pinpoint the place they have been struggling?
“If someone hasn’t accessed the material in seven days, that may be a yellow flag indicator to ask, ‘Is everything OK?’” Kaji says. “It has to be done with a lot of care with privacy, but as we’re thinking about the whole area of course content, we see those trends. There’s an opportunity for better data capture to help the university.”
