The traditional rush at college bookstores starts more than a month earlier when students buy their textbooks online, reports Laurie Aines, vice president of electronic commerce and integrated marketing for Follett Higher Education Group Inc. “The online rush starts five to six weeks prior to the in-store rush,” Aines says. “We’ve seen that develop over the years.”
Follett operates or franchises stores at 800 college campuses. With the start of this school year, it’s testing same-day or next-day delivery at 32 stores using delivery service Ensenda. Although efollett.com is still in the midst of the test, Aines and Cliff Ewert, vice president of campus relations, says the test it going well and expansion is a strong possibility. “Everything looks very positive,” Ewert says.
Students who order online for delivery, rather than going to the bookstore, tend to be in graduate programs with day jobs, at urban campuses where it’s not so easy to get to the store, or remote from campus, Ewert says. “More students are taking distance-learning classes and they don’t want to drive 50 or 75 miles to pick up their books,” Ewert says. Other students interested in delivery of textbooks include MBA and law students who often have to read required books before classes begin. Further, Aines adds, some students order online well in advance of the start of classes so they can get first pick of the used books.
All orders are filled from store inventory. All books can be returned to stores.
Follett introduced online sales in 1999. Online sales this year are increasing at about 30%, Ewert says.
Aines and Ewert say Follett is pleased with the test of Ensenda services. Ensenda does not deliver itself, but rather maintains a network of local delivery services. When an order comes in, the request is sent to a local delivery service via e-mail or a web site. Local delivery services must respond within a certain amount of time or the order is pulled back and assigned to another delivery service. Because the delivery services are local, they say, delivery personnel have gone beyond the requirements, in some cases tracking down not-at-home residents so they could deliver the books to the person’s place of work.
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