Two years ago, Akademos published the first comprehensive survey of college CFOs regarding the future of textbooks and college bookstore services — and in an exclusive webinar held on April 29, released the highlights of the eagerly anticipated 2015 follow-up study
In both surveys, participants were asked to estimate the trend line in their bookstore's textbook sales over the past 3 years.
In the latest survey, 91% of respondents indicated textbook and course materials sales have been flat or down over the past three years and in just two years there was a 36% increase in CFOs reporting declines of more than 10%.
One of our featured speakers Robert Pignatello, SVP of Finance and Administration at CUNY’s John Jay College, shared valuable insights during the webinar and commented on his own experience and observations:
"We started to think about providing low-cost options to students and re-thinking the traditional way of viewing the college bookstore," recalls Pignatello. We began to build up other areas of revenue producing activity at the college, knowing this trend was going to continue. In a few short years we saw [textbook sales] go down by 50%, and it continued to go down."
