Hello Campus Store!
Hopefully we’ve had a chance to meet face to face at the MEGA Conference in Las Vegas or at MACS in Lancaster, PA. We want to welcome you to our website and give you an overview of how Verba will help your store thrive in a more competitive online world.
In past conversations, we’ve seen significant interest from bookstores in collecting more course materials data from faculty and using it to provide an enhanced e-commerce experience to the campus community. Last week at MEGA that message was repeated, and with greater urgency than ever. A session on “the road ahead” by the NACS Foundation outlined the increasingly competitive landscape for campus stores, and claimed “online commerce capability a must.” Rich McDaniel of the Collegiate Retail Alliance described the importance of holding on to the course materials business by becoming an aggregator and deliverer of digital content through a “personal bookshelf” for students. The path forward is becoming clear, and we’re here to facilitate it.
At Verba, we’ve developed the technology your store needs to maintain and grow your market share as the course materials marketplace becomes both more open and multimedia-centric. The bookstore is in a natural (and enviable) position to become the one-stop shop for all course materials, from traditional textbooks, to e-books and journal articles, even YouTube videos and image files. By providing a single interface where faculty can explore and select course materials, your store will collect more information to support learning in your community. And, as the one-stop shop for all kinds of course materials, more students will flock to the store’s website.
Collecting all of this information is particularly relevant to your campus community now, as a result of the Higher Education Opportunity Act’s course materials disclosure mandate. Without your help, institutions will struggle to meet the new requirement. Verba technology makes it easy to embed the course materials lists compiled by your store across the institution’s digital landscape. Institutional staff will integrate materials lists within the online course schedule, and faculty members can place the lists on course websites. When they do so, your store can take of advantage of a new online point-of-sale with Verba’s “Click to Get Materials” functionality. The institution’s HEOA challenge becomes your store’s opportunity.
With more traffic coming to your online store, the next step is to improve customer retention and sell-through. We’re here to help with that as well. Today’s student often turns to Amazon or Half.com to buy their books before considering their campus store. They’re acting under the assumption that these retailers always beat your prices, but the data tells a different story: NACS data suggests that Amazon only wins on price 1/3 of the time compared with your store. With 49% of students citing price as the “main reason for not shopping at the college store,” there is an enormous incentive for stores to reverse this misperception.
Enter Verba! We’ve developed a state-of-the-art price comparison interface for integration within your online store. Looking at materials organized by course, students see where your store’s pricing stacks up against vendors of your choosing. They can add books from multiple vendors to the single shopping cart on your website before checking out at individual retailers. By offering price comparison up front, you’ll earn their trust and traffic. As a trusted source offering high convenience to students – and prices that match or beat competitor pricing 2/3 of the time – you’ll recapture some sales that would have otherwise gone to Amazon. And for sales that were going to Amazon anyway, you’ll now profit on affiliate revenues of up to 8.5% per sale.
Verba’s technology supplements and builds upon your existing retail management system. We’ll work with store staff to help you seamlessly bring your online operation up to speed. We’re excited for the opportunity.
