Nebraska book CompaNy

Nebraska Book Company (NBC) features its WinPRISM retail man-agement systems in approximately 1,200 bookstores in North America. WinPRISM provides integrated solutions for college stores, in-cluding POS, bar code scanning, mobile want listing, Web integra-tion, online and remote buyback, complete inventory control and financial accounting.

“We’re no longer just about course materials as a software so-lution provider,” said Kevin Gish, vice president of campus relations, Nebraska Book Company.

“We’re about giving you the tools to manage all of the prod-ucts that you sell out of your store. We are truly looking at the college store as a real retailer.”

Sue Riedman, vice president, corporate communications, added, “NBC is focused on providing cus-tomers with the tools they need for their systems, in order to op-erate an effective bookstore and become more aggressive, dynamic

retailers.” One of the ways that NBC sup-

ports college bookstores is ensur-ing that they are Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant. The PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security requirements de-signed to protect consumer credit card data, and is mandated by the cardholder brands — such as VISA and MasterCard — and by many state laws. If a store accepts credit cards, it is required to comply with the PCI DSS.

A good number of NBC stores are PCI compliant, and through the company’s PRISM and Win-PRISM retail management systems, stores have the tools and resources needed to be PCI compliant.

Gish noted that there are spe-cific sets of criteria that provid-ers have to meet to remain PCI compliant. “The original set of PCI compliance criteria was pub-lished almost two years ago. With the second set of criteria, we are compliant with the latest set of PCI standards.”

“If you’re not under the current list of standards, then you’re ob-solete,” added Mike Kelly, senior vice president, Textbook Division.

mbs

The latest version of the MBS POS system, launched in October 2008, continues the concept that it is not just a POS solution for college bookstores; it is, in fact, a point of service.

Jeff Miller, director, systems sales, explained that the MBS point of service is the “biggest key” for MBS POS systems in the approxi-mately 1,300 schools that feature POS systems from MBS.

“It’s more than just point of sale. It allows the user in the store to use it as a multifunction device, not just as a point of sale. Because it is a Windows-based system, they can access all of MBS’s applications from the POS as well.

“The biggest benefit for the

store is that you’re reducing the number of terminals and worksta-tions because it is a multifunction device. For the students, one of the key features is a state-of-the-art electronic payment system that offers sub-three-second responses on debit and credit transactions. The benefit for the store is more students in and out, and for the students, it’s faster time through checkout.”

MBS introduced the newest feature for its POS system, Signa-ture Capture, in March at Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) 2010 in Or-lando, Fla.

“It’s a trend a lot of retailers have implemented, and we just released that feature with our POS,” Miller explained. “It offers the store the ability to capture the signature at the PIN pad. On credit

POS Systems

provide solutionsfor College Stores

Point-of-sale (POS) systems provide college bookstores with the solutions they need to keep their stores viable, on many different levels.

From large stores to small, keeping track of inventory through the scanning of merchandise at the register is only one of the numerous applications that POS systems provide.

In addition to handling bookstore transactions, POS sys-tems can improve a store’s functionality by tracking textbook rentals and returns; provide e-commerce platforms so that students can make purchases on store websites; and much more, ultimately allowing college stores to provide first-class customer service to their students, while at the same time streamlining store operations.

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seeing a lot of interest from its cus-tomers in its book rental module. As a result, Sequoia launched a book rental program this month. Thus far, Sequoia has 20 schools signed up for this program.

“I think it’s a response to the proliferation of companies special-izing in renting, and the wholesal-ers are getting aggressively into the renting business, either through the school or independently,” he pointed out. “They feel like a school has to have a rental program in order to be competitive, although it looks to me like everybody’s got the training wheels on and seeing how this works out.”

budgetext Budgetext is ramping up its

textbook rental program within its store system in order to make things “simple” for college book-stores.

“We put together a rental pro-gram, not Budgetext itself, but in the store system as a group,” said Tresa Hannah, systems sales and service manager. “Budgetext, as a

sequoia retail systems

Textbook rental programs have become a hot topic in recent months, as college bookstores and distributors have begun renting print textbooks to students, either in the store or on the Web.

The idea is that renting, as op-posed to purchasing new, used or digital textbooks, could provide a cost-saving alternative for students.

Jim Zaorski, chief executive of-ficer (CEO), Sequoia Retail Systems, noted that book rental programs could make it more difficult for stores to get their normal sources to obtain their books.

“I think the book rental trend, which has just shot up over the last six months, has the potential to really change a lot of patterns in the industry, and is going to put an emphasis on the stores having to be more self-reliant in getting their own used books and being more aggressive in getting used books,” he explained.

Zaorski noted that Sequoia is

vides solutions for bookstores is helping them prepare for rush. “The technology we’ve rolled out is key, so faster throughput at the registers means that during rush at the beginning of the semester, they can get students through the lines faster and offer students all the benefits it can provide,” Miller said.

transactions only, the student signs on the PIN pad and thus it cuts down on the store receipt that you would keep in the drawer. It is then kept electronically in the system. It cuts down on paper, it cuts down on transaction time, and those are all good things for the store.”

One of the ways that MBS pro-

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POS, textbooks, general merchan-dise, accounts receivable, accounts payable, rentals and e-commerce. “It is all server based, but we host the server,” Winters said. “You don’t lose any functionality by going hosted.” —CSE

they don’t have to worry about. SmartSuite Hosted was intro-

duced just under a year ago, and it’s been very popular with college stores. “It cuts the upfront system cost in about half the price,” Win-ters said. “It’s very appealing, es-pecially for the smaller bookstore that just doesn’t have the cash to lay out for a new system. It helps them get in and get a better solu-tion going.”

One of the biggest features of SmartSuite Hosted is that Total Computing Solutions can host every module, every function, every feature. “Any and all of our modules can be hosted,” he added. “The whole system can be hosted.”

Some of the modules include

total ComputiNg solutioNs

Among the newer releases that Total Computing Solutions launched for college stores is the SmartSuite Hosted POS systems solution.

“Instead of the store having its own in-house server, we ac-tually host the server here at our extremely secure server farm,” ex-plained Senior Account Executive Steve Winters. “We’re doing all the updates for the server, the backups and the patches, everything. That just takes a lot of the maintenance out of the end user’s hands, things

company, is not running the text-book rental program. It’s an actual program built into our store sys-tems package. This is not a com-pany-sponsored rental program.”

Hannah explained how the rental program works. “It’s just like

any other rental program that’s out there. You come in, everything is bar coded. You have your standard rental inventory; everything is bar coded, so when you’re at the reg-ister and you bring up your cus-tomer, it allows you to rent items to them, and keeps track of overdue rentals and things like that.

“When they come back, all you have to do is scan the book in and it checks it back in. We try to make it pretty seamless and easy, because first of all, rentals are complicated on the paperwork end and the faculty end . So we try to make the store systems side be less complicated.”

Currently, Budgetext has three stores actively doing a pilot rental program on campus. “The three schools are the only ones actually using the program because they’re starting a program on their cam-pus,” Hannah said. “The rental package is not anything extra; it’s already built into the system. We’re not charging anything extra for that.”

The rental program’s features reflect the theme of simplicity. “It’s simple integration; it’s simple to put together; it’s simple to start a rental program; it’s simple func-tionality,” she noted. “We didn’t make it complicated — it’s just ‘Here’s your rental inventory; start renting it. Bring it back in; do your reports, accounts receivable (AR) stuff.’ All of that’s in there. If they want to put a rental program to-gether, they’ve got everything they need to start a program.”

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