Price Comparison- Be in it to win it!

Recently Amazon announced the release of an iPhone App, Amazon Student. The app is essentially a price comparison tool aimed at college students. Other features of the app allow the user to buy and sell books as well.

Here is another reason why college stores need to be cognizant of the value of offering price comparison, with tools like Verba. As mobile apps for price comparison becomes a common tool for customers, stores need to be aware that if they are not part of the price comparison the fail to become an option for the consumer. Price comparison is as much about consumer trust and relationships as it is about transparency.  If your store is not listed in the comparison you simply do not exist for the consumer. It’s simple, you got to be in the game to at least have a chance to win it.  Providing price comparison information is an easy way to help retain market share.

Disclosure:  NACS Media Solutions does have a partnership arrangement with Verba.  We believe strongly that this type of technology should be widely adopted by the college store community.  The move of Amazon into this space further demonstrates that this technology makes sense -- and college stores were there first!  Amazon followed our industry's example almost 18 months later! 

CAMEX questions answered: market share versus margin

As promised, over the next few weeks, I will answer questions CAMEX attendees wrote on index cards during my session. I have a few dozen cards, and some of the questions are redundant.

Looking across the questions submitted, they appear to fall into a few categories: rental, DRM, NACS/NMS initiatives, market share versus margin, facilitating change on campus and/or integrating with campus better, inventory questions, and then a few others. There are a number of good questions, and more than a couple without simple answers.

I will aim to answer 1-3 of the questions here each Friday until I have completed them all, so check back weekly to see if I have answered your question(s). This week I will answer one of the "market share versus margin" questions. If you have additional questions you would like to pose, please post a comment or drop me an email.

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Q1. Can you elaborate on the importance of focusing on market share rather than margin?
Yes. This is one of my favorite questions -- and lucky for you, I already have an answer prepared. Please see the August issue of InCITE which provides a detailed discussion, with examples and rationale as to why market share is important. This issue of InCITE went out to all NACS store members, and received a fair amount of positive feedback. Normally, the InCITE discussion is about 1-2 pages in length, but this one is a bit longer, giving detailed elaboration on this important topic. I believe it will help answer your question, and give you a resource you can share with your administration or other store employees to help them understand why certain actions or changes in business practice are necessary.