JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 • COLLEGE STORE EXECUTIVE
BYU Bookstore, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
BYU EXPERIENCE
T
he 124,000-square-foot BYU Bookstore,
on the campus of historic Brigham Young
University, Provo, Utah, serves one of the
country’s largest private and religious universities. The bookstore — offering 54,000 square
feet of selling space and 70,000 square feet of
storage and office space in the busy Wilkinson
Student Center — presents customers with a
large selection of popular items, everything
from general books and textbooks to gift items
and emblematic apparel.
According to Frank Tovar, lead marketing
specialist of the BYU Bookstore marketing department, the bookstore — which is headed by
Store Director Roger Reynolds and Assistant
Director Joe Merrill — serves approximately
30,000 students during the first two weeks of
BYU BOOKSTORE PHOTOS BY TJ DERRICK
school and thousands more throughout the
calendar year.
“As the official campus store for Brigham
Young University, the BYU Bookstore is a university campus partner in life-long learning,
serving the BYU community since 1906,” Tovar
said, adding that BYU owns and operates the
bookstore, with all proceeds supporting university facilities, operations and programs.
He noted that the bookstore — which is open
six days a week, Monday through Saturday, for
more than 60 hours each week — employs 119
staff members, including full-time and parttime workers, as well as 297 students — mainly
regular employees, but on-call and temporary
workers as well.
SALES ACTIVITY
Sales during the recent fall and winter/spring
semesters were significant, although not as
strong as in the past.
Tovar noted that net sales for fall 2011 (August-November) were $15.24 million, a 2.9 percent decrease from the $15.7 million accrued
during fall 2010. Winter/spring semester net
sales in 2011 (December-April) were $14.47
million, and the projection for winter/spring
2012 is $13.57 million, which would be a 6.2
percent decrease.
RENOVATIONS
The BYU Bookstore originally fit into a space
no larger than a broom closet, according to
Tovar, but it has undergone several renovations
during the past few years to make it more amenable to customers.
“In October 2010, all children’s apparel and
books were moved to the lower level of the store
to create a children’s department, and a reading
nook was created in the children’s book department,” he said.
In the fall of 2011, the main floor layout
changed to increase the floor space of the emblematic apparel Cougar Wear section, with
general books, gifts, men’s, women’s and photo
all involved in the move.
“Most recently, in the winter of 2011, the
computer and electronics department was
remodeled to better feature Apple products
and improve the layout,” he told College Store
Executive.
NUMEROUS STORES, SECTIONS
With all of these changes, the BYU Bookstore
is made up of numerous stores rolled into one.
According to the lead marketing specialist, the
store has several entrances, all opening up to a
unique area contained in the retail facility.
“The southwest entrance leads
to the Twilight Zone convenience
store and religious books and
gifts, while the northwest
entrance enters directly
into the general book
department,” he noted. “The center of the
store, on the main
floor, is home to the
Candy Counter, and
the gift department is
located on the southeast corner of the
store.
“The northeast entrance leads to the main
floor of Cougar Wear and
women’s clothing, and men’s
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 • COLLEGE STORE EXECUTIVE
clothing is located to the north of the Candy
Counter.”
Tovar continued, “The upper level of the BYU
Bookstore is dedicated to the textbook department and Cougar Tech — computers — and the
northeast entrance on the upper level of the
bookstore connects the terrace of the Student
Center with Cougar Tech.
“The bottom floor is home to children’s Cougar Wear — BYU apparel — children’s books,
school supplies, Pack and Ship, and Art and
Frame.”
The bookstore’s largest section is academic
publishing and textbooks, which Tovar said operates in 20,000 square feet of space and houses
5,740-7,175 titles in its textbook assortment for
any given semester, followed by the general book
area, with 8,000 square feet of space offering
96,000 titles in stock at any given time.
General merchandise includes 122,500140,000 different items divided among 12
merchandise categories, including emblematic (5,221 square feet); school supplies and art
(5,100 square feet); men’s and women’s clothing
(4,400 square feet); computers (3,200 square
feet); candy (2,200 square feet); and gifts (1,850
square feet).
BEST SELLERS
Apple products are among the bookstore’s
best sellers. “The BYU Bookstore is an authorized campus reseller for Apple,” Tovar said, with
the stock assortment including iPods, iPads,
laptops and desktops. He added that among
the store’s top-selling items are the 13-inch
MacBook Pro, the 8GB iPod Touch and all iPads.
The computer stock assortment is not limited to Apple products. “Cougar Tech carries PCs
from Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Sony
based on academic discounts offered by those
brands,” Tovar noted, adding that Cougar Tech
also carries Sony’s e-reader, the Sony Reader.
“Buyers are looking into other e-readers, but
recognize that iPads are dominating the market,” he said.
The bookstore’s computer accessory selection includes Skullcandy ear buds, Beats by Dr.
Dre headphones and other items under the
IFrogz, Sony and Moshi brands.
Apparel items are also big sellers in the bookstore. Tovar said that hoodies and T-shirts by
Gear, Champion and Nike are among the bookstore’s most popular items.
The BYU Bookstore carries gift and clothing merchandise to fit the season. “For gifts,
we rotate with the regular holidays, including
Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and
Christmas,” Tovar explained. “Our clothing fits
the four seasons of summer, fall, winter and
spring.”
Writing instruments also produce a significant amount of sales activity in the bookstore.
“Our buyers have noted that students like cheap
and common products — not glamorous ones
— for their general writing supplies,” Tovar said.
This includes the Y&C Hi-Glider, which Tovar
described as “a marker/highlighter that doesn’t
bleed to the next page or smear,” and the Pilot
G-TEC-C, “which is used for fine print to write
in book margins.”
CONVENIENCE ITEMS
Numerous convenience items are offered
in the convenience store, candy store and the
bookstore itself to satisfy almost any need.
“The Twilight Zone and Candy Counter cover
all candy and c-store items,” Tovar said. “We
carry candy, snacks, juices and sodas, including
sodas that are caffeine free.”
Popular drinks include BYU chocolate milk,
Dasani bottled water and Odwalla juices, with
Coca-Cola soda and caffeine-free products also
showing significant sales activity.
“The bookstore sells quick meal items including bagels, fresh fruit, sandwiches, chips, donuts
and cookies,” Tovar said. “Any grab-and-go food
item is very popular, with fresh products selling
better than microwavable or packaged products.” In addition, 7,000 pounds of the Bookstore’s famous fudge is sold.
SERVICES
Aside from the in-store assortment, the
bookstore offers students several other services, including a textbook rental program and
e-commerce capability through the bookstore’s
website.
“Our program includes in-store and affiliate
online rental options,” Tovar told College Store
Executive, adding that the bookstore has more
than 800 titles available for rental. The online
affiliate is www.rentsbooks.com, a division of
Follett Higher Education Group (FHEG).
“We’ve had our rental program for two years
now and have seen it become a successful
and growing part of our textbook program,”
he noted. “The rental option has greatly im-
COLLEGE STORE EXECUTIVE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
pacted the BYU Bookstore by providing books
at a price that students are more willing to pay.
This shows how more price conscious we need
to be to attract more students. Rentals offer a
more competitive price point. Not all students
are renting though, and not all textbooks are
available to rent.”
E-COMMERCE
Another service offered to students by the
bookstore is a website — www.byubookstore.
com — with a relatively long history of e-commerce capability.
“The BYU Bookstore has had some form of
e-commerce capability since 1999,” he said. “It
provides e-commerce capability with the ability to ship worldwide through DHL, FedEx and
UPS. Students can also order textbooks online,
with the option of in-store pickup.”
POS
With the bookstore processing millions of
transactions each year, Tovar said it needed a
highly accurate and efficient point-of-sale (POS)
system, and it chose Visual Ratex POS*Liberty
to handle this part of the operation.
“Since the POS system is tied directly to the
inventory database, we are given more flexibility
on promotions that feature specific markdown
or discount promotions,” Tovar said. “The integration of these features is important for the
merchandise cycle.”
MARKETING APPLICATIONS
The BYU Bookstore is located in the Wilkinson
Student Center — which resembles a hub for the
student experience at the university — and Tovar
said the bookstore takes advantage of its placement by utilizing signage through the center, including wall signs and tabletop flyers.
“Signs placed at the outside side entrances
are also effective since the bookstore is adjacent
to a busy outdoor quad,” he said, adding that
the store considers door entrance signs and
display windows “very beneficial,” since up to
17,000 individuals walk through the store on
any given day.
The BYU Bookstore also utilizes such vehicles
as the school newspaper — “The Daily Universe”
— and social media to make its presence known
on campus.
“We maintain regular ads in the school newspaper to announce major sales,” Tovar noted.
“Since fall 2010, we have been active on social
media with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and
a recent addition was the creation of a blog for
the general book department.”
In addition, the bookstore uses a mobile
marketing platform called Txtwire to send out
text messages on specials offers, reminders and
other promotions, and textbook buyback reminders are sent out at the end of the semester
to a growing subscription list.
“THE BYU EXPERIENCE”
“The BYU Bookstore is part of ‘the BYU experience,’ as alumni look forward to regular
visits during the summer months, game days
or other special events,” Tovar said.
The bookstore hosts more than 200 author and artist signings a year, and during the
Women’s Conference — a BYU campus event —
Tovar said the bookstore sells, on average, 2,300
pounds of chocolate-covered cinnamon bears.
“Fulfilling the needs of the student body
continues to be the BYU Bookstore’s main goal,
and the facility can be seen as an all-in-one
store where a student can get almost anything
without leaving campus,” Tovar explained.
“Continuous improvements and changes are
geared toward exceeding the expectations of
the thousands of students who enter the BYU
Bookstore.”
BOOKSTORE TOUR
Tovar noted that the BYU Bookstore is
“thrilled and excited” to showcase one of the
largest and oldest campus stores in the nation
as part of the 2012 Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) Campus Store Tour on Thursday, March
1, from 1-5:30 p.m.
“Since early 2011, the BYU Bookstore has
been preparing for the CAMEX Campus Store
Tour,” he said. “After reviewing the bookstore’s
services through many surveys, focus groups
and the use of the NACS Primer and Action Kit
as a guide, the BYU Bookstore is ready to share
what they have learned while preparing for the
College Store of 2015 initiative, in order to meet
the specific needs of the student body.”
The BYU Bookstore will showcase its main
floor layout redesign for tour attendees. “Attendees can see how the bookstore uses floor
space to feature products through events and
displays,” Tovar said, adding that the day of the
Campus Store Tour, the BYU Bookstore will host
a makeover event featuring “Boots,” a cosmetic
line entering the college market.
Three presentation sessions will be previewed during the tour: “Harnessing the Power
of Student Employees,” presented by Assistant
Director Joe Merrill; “2015 Initiative — The 2012
Edition,” led by Special Projects Assistant Chris
Peterson; and “Social Media: Do’s and Don’ts for
the College Market,” by Tovar and Marketing
Specialist Devon Fitzgerald.
“Store Tour attendees will see how these topics are put into action on a daily basis at the
BYU Bookstore,” Tovar said.
—CSE