NBC Textbook Rental Solution Provides Value for Students and College Bookstores

LINCOLN, Neb., Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Nebraska Book Company, a leader in the college bookstore industry, unveiled a comprehensive textbook rental program for the fall term designed to lower textbook prices for students, promote the value of students shopping at the local college bookstore and ensure the college bookstore remains financially solid.  The program works in conjunction with the college bookstore to support the rental of thousands of textbooks while maintaining store margins equal to the sale of the textbook.

"Students are demanding textbooks be available for rent in order to save money," said Michael J. Kelly, senior vice president, textbook division, Nebraska Book Company.  "Nebraska Book Company's textbook rental program meets the demands of students, is virtually risk-free for the store, is several times more profitable than partnering with an online rental company, and most importantly, it keeps the student a customer of the bookstore instead of handing them off to a competitor."

During the fall 2010 term, the NBC Textbook Rental program was deployed in more than 400 bookstores nation-wide with more than 26,000 textbook titles available for rental.  The program saved students more than 50% of the cost of purchasing the textbook new equating to hundreds of thousands of dollars saved by students in one term alone.

The NBC Textbook Rental solution:

• Allows the college bookstore to maintain or increase margins
• Relieves the bookstore of risk commonly associated with traditional rental models
• Offers more than 26,000 of the most commonly adopted textbook titles for rent
• Does not require multiple-term adoptions from faculty – no faculty commitments are required
• Is easily implemented and is fast and efficient at the POS

"Many college bookstores are outsourcing their rental programs to online competitors," continued Kelly.  "By partnering with an online vendor, the bookstore is giving away their customer and receiving only a nominal commission.  Our program keeps the student shopping in the store and keeps the bookstore financially solid while still supplying students with a comparable rental solution.  In addition, the student is assured of receiving the correct textbook, avoids shipping costs and returns are much easier."

Below is an example of the value the NBC Textbook Rental program provides the college bookstore and students.

A new textbook sells for $100.  The student rents that textbook at the college store for $45 and the store receives a rebate of $38 from NBC – the same margin the store would have received if the textbook was sold.  That same student rents the textbook online through a partner of the bookstore for $45 (the same price as renting it in the store) and the bookstore receives an 8% commission or $3.80 and the customer is lost to the online vendor.

By some industry estimates, the rental phenomenon will take a full third of the sell through in a college marketplace.  Following the math of the above example, a $5 million store would lose about $1.75 million annually to online textbook rentals.  If the store's margin is 30%, the store would give away $525,000 in margin.  Even if the store is getting an 8% commission on those sales from an online textbook rental partner, the revenue would only be $140,000 versus the $525,000 lost margin.  By using the NBC program, the $525,000 margin would not be lost and the bookstore would still have a viable rental solution.

Barry Waters, director, CMU Bookstore, said:  "Going from 0 to 650 in what seemed to be 60 seconds was scary but Nebraska Book Company's Rental Partnership program made it easy and profitable.  We jumped in head first with 650 titles available to rent this fall.  Our students' response was positive, they loved the lower price alternative and best of all they came into our store in droves.  The Nebraska Book Rental Partnership program is the only choice for me to keep my customers coming into the bookstore here at Central Michigan University."

About Nebraska Book Company

Nebraska Book Company began in 1915 with a single bookstore near the University of Nebraska campus but now serves more than 2.1 million students through its network of over 280 stores located across the country.  Our Textbook Division serves more than 2,500 bookstores through the sale of over seven million textbooks, and our Complementary Services Division has installed more than 1,800 technology platforms and e-commerce sites.  Additional information about Nebraska Book Company can be found at the company's website: www.nebook.com.

SOURCE Nebraska Book Company

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