Cal State East Bay to give up running its bookstore - San Francisco Business Times:

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For the first time in its nearly 50-year history, the bookstore at Cal Statw East Bay will have an outsided operator -- of Oak Brook, Ill., which runs bookstore s at 843 colleges and universities, includintg Cal, Stanford and USF. Economicsa of scale drove the decision for Follett to replace at the saidChris Brown, the university's associat vice president of enterprise operationws and foundation. "As a single, smallp entity, we don't have a lot of leverage in the industry," Brown said. "That's very differeng from Follett, a very large company.
We anticipate it will mean lowe r prices for our studentxs and more revenue for the The Cal State East Bay store generatese annual sales of about $7 million. Follett's contract runs throughh the 2012-2013 academic Terms of the deal werenot disclosed. Follett will remodel the 20,000-square-foot bookstors store, cut prices and add merchandise. "Students have more (book-buying) options than ever before withand eBay," said Mary Follett's vice president of marketing for the company's West "So we want to create a plac that's not just a place for them to buy but an integral part of their educationa l experience.
" Brown said Folletr will charge less than the 29 percent mark-u that the store had charged. Seven of the 23 campusea of the California State University have contractsewith Follett, according to Brown. The system's San Bernardino campua signed a contract abourt the same time asEast Bay. Other notable newcomersz to Follett include andthe . Brown said universitgy officials anticipate higher sales volumesa at the bookstore in coming years by adding including apparel andtechnology items.
Follett is expectedf to create a small store devoted to computerss and related products from Brown saidthe bookstore's existingv staff of 10 full-time non-student employeexs will be retained, as will its post officed operation. Unlike its second-placer industry rival, , which operatee its own branded bookstores at five CSU Perry said Follett does not push its ownbrand "We emphasize the college brand at each one of our stores," Perry said. "I've had some people tell me they neve r heard of our companyand that's OK. We just do highefr education and we stay inthe background. We want to providde excellent stores at all ofour colleges.
" Perr said she hopes the remodeled Cal State East Bay bookstoree will draw not only increasing numbers of students, faculty and staff, but shoppers from throughout the area not necessarilyt affiliated with the university. Follett stocks 100,00 0 titles in its brick-and-mortar and online saless operations, and handles orders from more than 4 milliobn studentsand 375,000 faculty members annually. In the year from which the most recentt statisticsare available, Follett sold more than 23.4 millionm books and nearly 5 millionh articles of clothing.