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Bookstore E-Mails Unlikely to Influence Students
3/25/05
College students choose convenience over price when they shop online. This, and many other revealing findings were reported at CAMEX during the Influencing College Student Shopping Behavior session, presented by NACS research analyst Erinn Kingman and three college store operators.The presentation was based on results from the most recent Student Watch survey -- Understanding College Students: Attitudes Toward Advertising and Promotion, Online Shopping Behavior, Factors in Purchase Decisions. The survey, sponsored by the NACS Foundation, took place last fall on 12 college campuses. About 10,000 responses on paper and online were gathered and analyzed to better understand what college students are buying, where they buy, what drives them into college stores, and what makes them reach into their wallets and spend once they are inside a store.
"The results from the survey will help us time and time again," said Susan Rasmussen, CSP, director of auxiliary services at Inver Hills Community College Bookstore, Inver Grove Heights, MN. Rasmussen's school was among the participants in the survey.
The study examined the way college students respond to advertising and promotion efforts from their college stores. The school newspaper, window displays, and coupons are all effective ways of attracting potential customers into the store, according to survey results. E-mails from college stores have not proven as effective.
"People that pay attention to school newspapers are more likely to shop at their college stores for items other than course materials," Kingman said, adding that pop-up ads and mass e-mails are likely to be ignored by most students, although 91% of students living on campus said they are online every day. Nearly half of the students surveyed said they delete e-mails from their inbox from an unrecognizable sender without ever opening them.
This came as a surprise to Andy Dunn, director of the George Fox University Bookstore, Newberg, OR, a store serving a small four-year Christian liberal arts school that was another survey participant.
"We were shocked. We send out e-mails to every student, like crazy," Fox said. "We found out we were wasting our time."
Kingman offered advice to address that problem during the session: Stores could send e-mails about store sales with that information written in the subject line rather than only in the body of the e-mail. By highlighting the sale in the subject line of the e-mail, at least the information will receive a glance, she said—if only as the student's hand is hovering to click the delete button.
Awareness of their college store's web site was low among students who took the survey. While a third of students have purchased their required textbooks online through their college bookstore, 43% of students have never accessed their college store's web site for any reason, according to results from the survey.
At George Fox University, the survey showed 14.5% of students didn't even know the college store had a web site, "even though we've had a web site for four years," Dunn said. Dunn plans to work with the school's fashion-merchandising students to create banners to raise awareness of the store's web site, he said.
While students may not frequent their college store web sites, students are certainly shopping online. Online purchases increase with class level. According to the survey, 71% of freshmen, 82% of upperclassmen, and 92% of graduate students have spent their money online. When it comes to buying textbooks, 16% of the survey's respondents said they purchased online. Of that group, 73% of the students said they purchased textbooks at an online retailer other than at a college store or student-created web site. College stores captured online textbook sales from about a third of the students surveyed who said they purchased online.
To compete with online booksellers, Dunn said he offers a price-matching program during the first week of the semester. The George Fox University Bookstore challenges students to find a cheaper price, which is then verified and matched. That price must include shipping, because, as Fox said, "A bargain's not a bargain if you can't get it."
Once students are inside the store, the survey revealed that they do buy things other than textbooks, with logo clothing among the popular items. Students who said they purchased logo clothing, 70%, shopped at a college store. The other top non-course materials purchased were pens and pencils, paper, arts and crafts items, and greeting cards. Satisfaction with a store's selection of logo clothing is an strong indicator of how likely students are to purchase items other than course materials throughout the year, Kingman said. On average, students spent $88 each during the year on logo clothing, and $99 on art and craft supplies.
However, college bookstores don't sell all the logo clothing students buy, Kingman added. "About 30% of the people who are buying logo clothing aren't buying it at their bookstore," Kingman said. "They're buying it somewhere else."
Taking a few minutes to check out a search engine's results is a good way to find out where clothing with your school's logo is being sold. Go to Google, for example, and type in "Ohio State sweatshirts." If your store doesn't come up first in the results, people could be buying their items elsewhere.
Jeff Nelson of the Bowling Green State University Bookstore, Bowling Green, OH, another survey participant, said the survey helped bring his focus back to the important things about retailing: "Ask, listen, and give your customers what they want," he said.
Complete Student Watch reports can be purchased through the NACS Product Center.
—Tara York Ellis
Sound Off!
Carol Miller, CSP (carol.miller@ndsu.edu) 3/29/2005 10:33:00 AM
We have found that our students are more aware of things through our campus list serv than any other form of advertising. Some students have complained that they are being "spammed", but most are very aware of the emails and remember my name at the bottom of the message! So it looks official, I am the only one who sends them out from the store.
Carol Miller
Sound Off!
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