Most inventory planning still starts from the same place: look at what sold last year, order something close to it, and adjust on the fly once the semester gets underway. That approach works well enough until it doesn’t, until a stockout during welcome week or a pile of unsold gear in March reveals how much … Continue reading
A great holiday display does more than look festive, it actively shapes how a shopper moves through the store and what they end up carrying to the register. For campus bookstores, the holiday season is a rare window when even students who only come in for required textbooks the rest of the year will wander … Continue reading
The 2026 Douglas Stewart Holiday Campaign is officially back again! Head over to the bakeshop to find this holiday season’s best deals from product promotions, raffle giveaways (U.S. only), and extra exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else. Visiting from Canada? Check out our Canadian website’s Holiday HQ Bakeshop! Stay Connected With Us The best … Continue reading
Most campus bookstores already know when their store gets busy and what sells well. But vibes and “data-backed” are two very different starting points for a decision. The managers getting the most out of their traffic aren’t just reacting to a busy Saturday or a slow Tuesday, they’re using actual visitor and sales data to … Continue reading
Every retailer treats the holidays as a chance to study its customer more closely, and college students deserve that same attention — they just don’t shop like the general holiday crowd. A student’s holiday list, budget, and shopping habits are shaped by things most shoppers don’t deal with: a fixed allowance, a tight circle of … Continue reading
Most holiday planning focuses on getting product onto the shelf and out the door. But the season doesn’t really end at checkout — it ends weeks later, when a wave of returns and exchanges shows up all at once. For a campus bookstore, that wave can be just as disruptive as the original rush if … Continue reading
The holiday season gives campus bookstores a real shot at revenue that has nothing to do with textbooks — but only if the prep work happens before the rush, not during it. Every year, retailers make the same avoidable mistakes: trusting inventory numbers that are already wrong, under-staffing the floor with under-trained help, and holding … Continue reading
Game day fills campus with exactly the kind of energy most retailers spend a marketing budget trying to manufacture: excitement, school pride, and a crowd that’s already in a spending mood. For a campus bookstore, the challenge isn’t generating interest — it’s showing up in the right way to capture it. That means thinking beyond … Continue reading
Holiday shopping used to be something students did when they went home for break, largely out of the campus bookstore’s reach. That’s changed. Today’s students discover gifts on their phones, expect to buy them wherever they happen to be standing, and bring very specific values and budgets to the decision. For campus bookstore managers building … Continue reading
For most retailers, football season is background noise. For a campus bookstore, it’s a second peak season almost as important as move-in — a recurring, predictable surge of fans, alumni, and families who show up every home Saturday ready to spend on spirit gear. The stores that treat game days as a real retail channel, … Continue reading
