“It may be the season for graduation parties and commencement speeches, but colleges and universities are already prepping for next year, even in the bookstore,” Pullen reports. “Next fall, during opening weekend, students will once again file into university bookstores to purchase course materials, school supplies, and a college sweatshirt or two.”
“While the university licensed gear may seem like a throw-in, it’s big business for colleges and their coffers,” Pullen reports. “But as the higher education industry plans for a future involving digital content delivery to devices like Apple’s iPad, these college-branded impulse purchases – and perhaps even college bookstores – may quickly become a thing of the past.”
Pullen reports, “Should students demand content on the iPad, bookstores will be locked out. Apple’s current App Store and iBookstore sales models give publishers the lion’s share of a 70-30 revenue split, and cut out the schools entirely. Meanwhile, in bookstores’ current distribution model, colleges pocket, on average, 33% of the price of a new book.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Change is the one constant. Universities should be working with Apple to stock iPads – along with Macs, iPhones, and iPods – in their campus bookstores.