Erin Boyd and Megan Alvarez PSMA Student Book Store Analysis The Penn State Marketing Association

n worked with the Student Book Store in downtown State College for the fall 2013 semester through the spring 2014 semester. The project began with a meeting with John and planning. After the completion of the project outline and timeline, the market research began. In order to obtain insight to our current and potential customers, we created an online and written survey. Our online survey conducted through Survey Monkey was distributed for 3+ weeks. We received a total of 73 responses. The survey was posted on all PSMA social media, and in addition, members forwarded it to their clubs and friends. There were 5 questions in this survey asking: 1) Where do you typically buy/rent your textbooks? (Check all that apply); 2) What are your top deciding factors to where you get your textbooks? (Check all that apply); 3) Do you compare textbook prices?; 4) When do you typically buy/rent your textbooks?; 5) What year are you? The first question indicated that 57.5% of students buy their books from The Student Book Store, followed by 46% from online. The second question concluded that students have based their purchase decision off of price, as 82% responded to cheapest price. Following this is location at 46.6%. For this question, students were able to check all that apply, but price was the major purchasing factor. For the third question regarding the comparison of book prices, 79.5% of students answered that they did compare prices. For the fourth question regarding timing of buying or renting of textbooks, 54.8% of students wait to see if they are actually going to need the book in class before they purchase it. This response was followed by 31.5% who buy their books during syllabus week. For our final question regarding what year each student was, 68.5% of them were juniors and only 1% were freshmen. Because of our lack of freshman responses, we reserved an information table in Findlay Commons to target the freshman demographic. Our written survey was similar to the online survey, except it was shorter so that students would be more willing to complete it. We received 103 responses and transferred our written responses into Google Form. Our 3 questions included: 1) Where do you typically buy/rent your textbooks?(Check all that apply); 2) What are your top deciding factors to where you get your textbooks? (Check all that apply); and 3) What year are you?. In response to our first question, 36% of students buy their books online, followed by 31% of students buying their books from The Student Book Store, followed by the Penn State Book Store with 24%. In response to the second question, the top-deciding factor for purchasing books was price with 67%. In response to our final question, 53% of students who answered the survey were juniors and only 7%

were freshmen. As stated above, by distributing surveys to Findlay Commons, we will be able to obtain more information regarding freshmen in relation to buying textbooks. After conducting a survey in Findlay Commons, we compiled results to analyze freshman textbook buying habits. Using the same paper survey as before, we targeted the freshman demographic. In response to our first question, 44% of students buy their books at the Student Bookstore, followed by 37% of students buying their books from The Penn State Bookstore (HUB), followed by purchasing online with 17%. In response to the second question, the top-deciding factor for purchasing books was price with 65%, followed by one-stop shopping with 21%. In response to our final question, 90% of students who answered the survey were freshmen. Based off of the results from our survey, it is clear that students value price more than any other factor, therefore it would be most beneficial to have a monetary incentive to increase the sales. We plan to promote the Student Bookstores promotions of Save 10% on used book purchases when you pay with LionCash and Save 10% on your next rental when you return a rental/sell back a book to the Student Bookstore. We believe this will have the greatest impact on persuading freshmen students to get their books at the Student Bookstore since they will look for a way to save money when buying/renting textbooks. With promotion of these strong incentives, we believe sales have the ability to surpass our goal of 5%. Our market research indicated that students value saving money; therefore we promoted a monetary incentive. We designed two flyers that advertised two different store promotions, 500 flyers in total. The flyers advertising the first promotion were dispersed throughout campus including, the HUB, business building, Redifer Commons, Findlay Commons, Thomas, Atherton, and Pollock Commons. This took place two weeks before finals. This flyer advertised 10% off of one book rental in the spring semester to students who sold back books in December. In addition, this promotion was on all of PSMAs social media. This concluded the promotional activities for the first promotion. Before the end of the first semester, the flyers advertising the second promotion were completed to allow us to start flyering as soon as the new semester started. There was no time wasted once the second semester began. A new flyer was distributed promoting a new advertisement. This flyer advertised a promotion for saving 10% off any used textbooks if purchased with LionCash. This promotion was only for the month of January. Emails with the flyer were sent out again to the two listservs, and the flyer was on all PSMA social media. During the first day of the second semester, all the flyers were distributed throughout campus, including West Commons, Pollock Commons, business building, the HUB, Thomas, Atherton, and Findlay Commons. Once all of the flyers were distributed, our efforts were complete until January, when our

sales would be completed

The final sales number for the Student Book Store showed a 3% increase in sales from the previous year. Although this did not quite meet our goal of raising textbook sales by 5%, it was still a success for the SBS and our project team, considering the industry average and recent past for SBS shows a 10% decrease in sales per year. The slight increase in sales compared to the expected decrease was attributed to new rental programs as well as our marketing efforts for the store. Our team and John believe that promoting the Student Book Stores name across campus and through social media and email by our team and through LionCash was a major cause in the overall increase in sales. In fact, the actual promotions did not impact used textbook sales, seeing as they decreased 20%. But, the trends in the textbook industry and the promotion for the store resulted in over a 20% increase in used textbook rentals, offsetting the previously mentioned decrease to give us the slight overall increase in sales. Although the actual promotions for discounts offered did not seem to affect textbook buying habits for students, getting the word out about the Student Book Store ultimately resulted in increased sales to students. Though we managed to increase overall sales by 3% this year, we believe that this number could be even higher in the future. Referring back to our market research results, we concluded that students care most about price when it comes to buying textbooks, and especially prefer to rent to save the greatest amount of money. They are also waiting until they start the class or actually need the book for something to purchase it. Based on these results, we can conclude that continuing to offer financial promotions during the prime buying period is the best option. To make the promotions even more effective, we would suggest drawing attention to the offered promotions in and around the store. If students see large signs, stands, or attention drawing items such as balloons outside of the store during the first week of classes, they are more like to be aware of the financial benefits SBS offers and go there to purchase or rent their books. Even if they dont end up taking advantage of the discount, they are likely to choose SBS over a bookstore that offers no discounts at all. Along those lines, we think it would be beneficial to have the promotions sent out in an email on various listservs for Penn State students. During our project, we attempted to get in touch with many different groups, but were not able to do so in the limited amount of time after our promotion was devised. In the future, being sent out to thousands of students by email may increase awareness of the SBSs presence and financial promotions even more than flyering and social media did. Another idea would be to get in touch with incoming freshman through mail or email before or as soon as they arrive on campus. Doing so would draw students to the SBS from the beginning and hopefully secure them as customers in all future semesters. From our survey results, although many freshman

students did report being customers of the SBS, a large portion automatically went to Penn States campus bookstore, so targeting the group may bring in even more customers early on in their career.