Online sales threaten bookstore
By Hilary Strickland
Summer Forty-Niner
For the past 50 years,
the Cal State Long Beach University Bookstore has been supplying the campus
with textbooks.
Recently, online
bookstores have become increasingly popular and may prove stiff competition
for the campus bookstore.
Online bookstores
are not a new thing, but online booksellers specializing in textbooks for
students are becoming more prevalent. Online text-booksellers promise
students discounted prices without the headache of waiting in line to purchase
books.
"Online booksellers
have a benefit for some people," said Fred Neely, University Bookstore
director, "But, I don’t think they can service each individual campus as
well as a campus bookstore can."
Neely maintains that
a campus bookstore is the best place for students to buy textbooks.
"The key, I think,
is being accurate, we have the most accurate up-to-date information," he
said, "If a faculty member calls me today with new information, that information
will be in the computer tomorrow."
"Varsitybooks.com
is an online bookstore created by students, for students," Tim Levy, chairman
and co-founder of Varsity Books, said.
According to Levy,
he and his partner Eric Kuhn were law students at George Washington University
Law School purchasing textbooks when they had the idea of starting
an online bookstore that would offer students a great selection, timely
delivery and affordable prices.
Neely said he looks
at the online bookstores as a marketing challenge to educate people not
to believe everything they see.
"Yes, maybe you might
be able to find one book out there at 40 percent off, or a couple of books
at 40 percent off," Neely said. "But across the board you’re not going
to find that 40 percent difference."
"I had one of my
employees go out and check seven online vendors and do a price comparison
of the top 26 titles that we [University Bookstore] sell," Neely said.
"When we looked at the price comparison it wasn’t that big of a difference,"
he said.
Returning books is
easier at the University Bookstore, Neely said.
"We feel returning
books is easier because the student doesn’t have to pay to ship the
book back," he said. "Also, there is no waiting time to get money back
for the book. If you paid cash, you get cash back; if you used a credit
card we can credit your account immediately, and if you paid with a check,
you get a check voucher that’s good at the bookstore."
In an attempt to
combat online booksellers, the Bookstore is taking steps to make book buying
easier for the campus community.
This summer the Bookstore
has implemented a textbook reservation process. Close to 8,000 students
were sent information on reserving textbooks and about 700 students have
taken advantage of the new service.
Reserving books can
be done at the Bookstore web site or through the mail. The student lists
his or her schedule using course and section numbers, whether they want
new or used books and if they want only the required books or the optional
texts as well.
The books are pulled
off the sales floor and placed in a textbook reservation box with the student’s
name on it.
"The four days prior
to classes starting, students can go to The Nugget during our [University
Bookstore] regular operating hours and give us their name and we’ll
go get their box of books," Neely said.
The Bookstore is
also very interested in becoming active in e-commerce.
"This spring semester,
our goal is to have the capabilities to let the students make the choice
whether they want to buy their books at our web site or buy them
up," he said.
"We could have done
it this semester, but we decided that we’d rather do it right," he said.
Neely said it is
too early in the game to figure it out what percentage online bookstores
will take from business.
"When it all shakes
out down in a year or two, I think there will be probably two or three
key players out there selling books," he said. "Then I can look at what
we need to do to maintain competitive prices."
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