Bookstore revamps pricing system

Author: Andrew Fuller

The Middlebury College Bookstore is launching a campaign to lower textbook prices and promote the recycling of textbooks by making used textbooks more widely available. The campaign will begin with the start of the spring semester and will coincide with the bookstore's continued use of Facebook.com and textbook promotions as ways to improve business while helping students.

The campaign "A Book is a Terrible Thing to Waste" aims to build on the bookstore's recent success in raising the ratio of used books sold to new books sold. "We have doubled our supply of used textbooks from 15 percent used textbook ratio to 30 percent in the last year," said Bookstore Manager Robert Jansen. "Our goal is to get to a 50 percent used to new ratio, one used book sold for every new book sold."

The bookstore seeks to improve the faculty adoption process so that students will get more money for the books they sell and pay less for the books they buy. When a faculty member notifies the bookstore on time that he or she will be reusing a textbook in a class for the next semester, the bookstore will buy that book at a higher price from students who already own it. The book will then be sold as used and at a lower price the next semester. Books that are not being reused by a professor may be purchased by one of the bookstore's wholesale companies at a lower price than the bookstore would pay if the book was being reused. According to Jansen, "used books save students 25 percent" while students selling books back to the bookstore that are being readopted will get "50 percent [of] what they paid."

One method that the bookstore will use to make used textbooks more available is to get more timely textbook adoption notices from the faculty. "If we can get our ratio of timely faculty adoptions up to say 85 percent to 100 percent, by our deadlines, this alone will make a meaningful difference in the lives of both current and future students," said Jansen.

The campaign will also focus on the environmental benefits of recycling books. With the help of Campus Sustainability Coordinator Jack Byrne and facilities services, the bookstore will have blue recycling bins in dining and residence halls across campus at the end of each semester so that students can deposit in them books that they do not want or books that have no value to the bookstore.

Books that are found in the bins will be given to other students for free in the bookstore. "It is better for the majority of Middlebury students, the environment and the College when books are recycled here on campus," said Jansen. If one of the bookstore's wholesalers will pay for a book put in a blue bin, the money gained from the sale will be used to fund a bookstore promotional event.

The bookstore plans to continue using Facebook.com and promotional events to profitably help students, as they have in the past. The "Friends of Middlebury College" Facebook.com event on May 27, 2007 gave 30 percent off on select clothing and gift items to Facebook friends of the bookstore. According to Jansen, "Sales increased 327 percent compared to the same period last year on the clothing and gift items, and profitability doubled even after accounting for the 30 percent discount."

The Fall Family Weekend 60 Second Shopping Spree was similarly profitable, increasing "sales by 70 percent for the same period a year ago, [with] profitability increased 68 percent, after paying the cost of the shopping spree for the cost of the clothing," said Jansen. The bookstore will continue to have such promotions, said Jansen, partly because Facebook promotions advertise the bookstore well.