Advocacy Articles

NACAS 2001…More Choices for Institutional Stores to Excel!
Mark Palmore, Institutional Store Advocate

The 2001 NACAS Annual Meeting and Trade show was held recently in New Orleans. Dick Welsh and I attended from Connect2One along with our Nebraska Book Company colleagues Mike Kelly and Kevin Gish of CampusHub, Walt Timmerman of PRISM, Randy Stejskal of College Store Design, and Steve Bartek, Program Director of the NBC Advantage Program. This meeting continues to be of the utmost importance for our advocacy efforts and this year was no exception. Our message is being heard by administrators as can be attested to by the activity in and around our booth.

This year much more than in the past, administrators know the many offerings of Connect2One and Nebraska Book Company. They are asking more questions about keeping their store institutional and we even talked with a few who want to take their stores back from contract management companies. The advocacy program has been successful because store directors have used the information we provide to build a solid case to keep their store institutional/self-op. The program will continue to grow because of the addition of the many services available from our company.On display at NACAS were:

CampusHub continues to be of great interest to administrators who are looking to generate additional revenue from their bookstore. Kevin Gish, Director Sales and Marketing of theCampusHub and Gary Thompson, Bookstore Director, St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, presented an excellent educational session outlining the value of a store having a strong e-commerce solution such as CampusHub.

Walt Timmerman and the entire PRISM staff continue to supply stores an outstanding product. PRISM and NBC have a strong brand image with NACAS members. Even those stores who had PRISM before they were leased come by to see Walt and complain that their current system-or lack of one-is not working as well as PRISM. (Neither one of the two major contract management companies has a POS system in all their stores.)

Too often, administrators consider leasing their store because they do not have the vision to see how much better the store could be if they simply considered- a re-model. One new and exciting offering from Nebraska Book Company is College Store Design. Randy Stejskal at NBC has over a decade of experience in designing college stores. In addition to store planning services, NBC is now offering a fixture discount program. As a member of Connect2One, you can now tap into NBC's bookstore fixture program and receive excellent pricing.

Another feature administrators like is the NBC Advantage program which enables NBC customers who sell 80% of their books to Nebraska to earn NBC Dollars. Those NBC Dollars can be used to pay for PRISM, CampusHub, Connect2One, and other services provided by NBC with no out-of-pocket expense for the store.

All of the above listed offerings coupled with our continued efforts to promote the value of the institutional bookstore are paying off. Let us help you and your store.

For more information on the Connect2One Institutional Store Advocacy Program, please call me at (800) 563-9034. For information about any NBC program, please call (800) 869-0366.