If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em

by: Beth Sentell

 

What? Join the competition? Crazy, right?  Maybe not.

This past semester BookFool approached my store with a proposition to join forces with them.  I have to be honest, when I first saw the rep’s business card as he was introducing himself; I literally thought to myself, he has got to be crazy!  They are the enemy! Why is he even talking to me!   That was the competitive nature in me.  Even with all the trash-talking in my head, I still invited him into my office to hear him out.

The rep wanted us to work with BookFool by using their website to conduct buybacks.  It would work like all other vendors with buyback in that we would get a commission for every book we would buyback and they would pay freight to ship the books to them.  I don’t remember saying this, but the rep told me just the other day that he will never forget my words in our first conversation.  Apparently I said, “I will do anything to get rid of you as my competition.”  He says that me saying that has stuck with him ever since.  Although at that time he couldn’t give me an answer about taking away their off campus location, he said he would definitely talk to someone to see if he could make that happen.  In the meantime I had to talk to my boss who had to talk to his boss and so on just to approve us working with BookFool. 

After much debate of weighing the pros and cons of doing this, we finally got the go-ahead to team up with BookFool.  So, we began learning their website, setting up passwords and whatnot.  It is actually a fairly simply site to work with.

Because of our contract with Follett, we had to be sure BookFool understood that we had to check all books that come in with them first.  They understood and still wanted to proceed.  So, the week of buyback came and we had to set up two computer stations.  We really did that just so there wouldn’t be any confusion on which book goes to which vendor, if it ever got busy (which it did).  We just kept them separate.  We automatically went to BookFool if Follett wasn’t ever buying a book.

In the end, we got the students to the store as well as telling them that we are on their side by teaming up with a company that can give them more money.  We gained back students we had originally lost to BookFool and the added commission was helpful as well.  Some students actually said they were excited we teamed up with BookFool because that meant they only had to go to one place instead of two different locations!

Now, critiques of working with them.  At first, they didn’t want to give us a few hundred dollars for a couple of reasons.  One, several of the books didn’t meet the “good” standard price point but the “acceptable,” which is a lesser price point.  Two, they said several books were missing when in reality they were shipped.  Maybe they are lost in the shipping world!  Once talking with my manager, they decided to go ahead and give us the money because we didn’t have a clear idea of what they would call “good” verses “acceptable,” and with it being our first time, they were willing to work with us.  They also said they will be sending us photos of examples of what is good vs. acceptable, which is a great way for us to know what they expect!

                There were a few downfalls to the website.  First, we weren’t able to delete transactions once we finalized them.  We all know students change their minds after a minute of thinking about it and decide to keep the book.  Well, once it was finalized there was no function for us to delete the transaction; we had to email people at BookFool to have it taken off.  Next, we weren’t really able to print a receipt of the transaction.  We were able to go to the file button and print the page, but there was no way on the site to print.  Also, some of the reports for balancing the money and other things were not completely user friendly.  The last complaint about the website was a bigger one for me than the others in that it wouldn’t recognize the used bar codes when you scanned them; you had to type them in.  Now, I’m not lazy (ha!), I don’t mind typing in the numbers, but when you have a line of students and someone with 5 used books in hand is next up, it doesn’t go very quickly.

The good thing about BookFool is that they are very personable and willing to learn and help us learn as we go.  They took all the critiques my boss gave them about the website and other things in general and they are working on solutions for them.  I just today saw some changes for the better on their website.  They even told us last week that they are working on having a 10-day turn around on check payments.  They are new to the area of teaming up with the stores instead of being against them.  Their ultimate goal is to eventually do away with their off campus locations completely and be 100% working with the bookstores. 

Even with the hiccups we had a long the way, we plan on working with them throughout the school year as well as during buyback week and I would recommend anyone work with them, it’s a win/win situation for you in that it gets them to stop competing, it creates better morale with the students and the extra commission doesn’t hurt either!  So, seriously! If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!