Monday, May 18, 2009

Keep it Green by Recycling Unwanted Books

From one of the NACS discussion lists comes a referral to Green Earth Book Recyclers.

If you and your students have unwanted books throughout the year, consider partnering with this company. They do not sell books online and provide certificates of destruction for all batches of books sent to the grinder. Other books in good shape, especially children's books, are batched and donated to charitable organizations.

Find out more about Green Earth Book Recyclers on their web site: http://www.greenearthbookrecyclers.com/index.html.

The Retail Muse

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Everything's Coming up COLOR!

Color is one of the most important concepts to selecting, buying, and presenting merchandise.

And thanks for one of the content leads in NACS' recent online course, In-store Marketing, we've found a fun and powerful way to experiment with color via a new web site: http://www.colorblender.com/.

At colorblender.com you can:

- Choose a preferred color using the color picker
- View a 6-color matching palette (a "blend") that is automatically calculated
- Switch to to Direct Edit mode to tweak or edit individual colors of your blend
- Save "blends" for future use on your computer (uses cookies)
- E-mail "blends"

Enjoy this cool online tool!

The Retail Muse

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

"Amazon to Launch Kindle for Textbooks"

So states the headline for a Wall Street Journal article online today (read article here).

The move to digital textbooks seems to be quickening every day. So why does this keep The Retail Muse up at night? Because I wonder how many college stores are preparing for the change that is coming. The change in their traffic producers, their stock rooms, their floor layouts, and their revenue streams. To say nothing of their relationship with their customers--students, faculty, administrators, and pubishers.

I wonder if we are all doing enough to prepare for the change on BOTH sides of our business--course materials and...everything else.

Now, more than ever, we must all be skilled, effective retailers and ready to meet the challenges ahead head on.

Now, more than ever, is the time to reach out to others to seek partnerships, find out ways to meet your customers' needs, and solidify your store's value contribution to yours customers and campus.

Now, more than ever, we must invest in our people and support them with the tools and resources they need to drive our businesses to the next level.

It's time for a revolution.