Student, Serve Thyself

When NACS was a young association, it was standard practice for college stores to stow their textbook shelves behind a barrier and require students to come to the counter one at a time for clerk service. In the 1950s, however, the radical concept of self-service arose.

Let students shop for their books without any help? This will never work, claimed many stores—among them, the Students’ Supply Association store at Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

The BYU store resisted switching to self-service. That is, until the administration agreed to build a brand-new store. But the new store came with a caveat: the staff had to use the most up-to-date retail practices in their new digs, including self-service for course materials.

To do or not to do self-service was a hot topic in The College Store magazine at the time. Many articles in the 1950s issues were devoted to the subject. In the April 1953 issue, H. Neil McKnight described how the BYU store decided to try out self-service before its new store was built, half-expecting utter calamity. They were astonished at its success.

Here is a reprint of McKnight's article, which was originally published in The College Store magazine’s Convention Issue in April 1953:

We Tried Self Service

by H. Neil McKnight, Students’ Supply Association, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT

My first look at a self service college textbook department was in April, 1949, when I visited the store at Pasadena Junior College. I remember being very anxious to see how they could possibly operate a college textbook department on a self service basis, and then, after seeing it, write it off as something that wouldn’t work in our store.

The next time I became interested in it was last April [1952] when we were told to start planning a new store. We were to build an entirely new building, with construction to start just as soon as we could plan it. My instructions were that the new store was to employ the very latest and best methods of retailing.

We had heard that there were several self service type operations in the East that were quite successful, and I noted that the Miami Convention [now CAMEX] program listed a discussion on the subject by Ray Ritchie. I didn’t at that time have any idea that it would work for us, or that we would even want to try it, but I thought it was my duty to look into it before completing the plans for our new store. I therefore rushed a letter off to Russell Reynolds [NACS general manager], asking him what stores he thought I should visit. At the same time, I sought permission to attend the Miami Convention and visit stores on the way. Permission was granted for the trip, and Russell responded with a wonderful itinerary for me—right at his busiest time of the year. So I set out for the Convention with my mind already made up that self service just wouldn’t work for us, and I had a lot of very good reasons for thinking so.

The trip took me to three self service stores, University of Minnesota, Carnegie Tech, North Carolina State, and several stores of the conventional type. I found that all three stores were fixtured differently. They were each catering to a different kind of student trade, and there were quite a few differences in their operating methods. However, each of them seemed to be operating very smoothly, without experiencing the trouble I had anticipated, and they all felt it was the only way to sell books. Their enthusiasm for self service made me take it seriously. I looked at it this way. Here were three good bookstore men who had tried selling books both ways, and they were all completely sold on self service, so it must have some merit. I decided, therefore, that we must try it to find out for ourselves.

Upon returning from Miami, the material I had gathered was presented to my textbook people and to our Board of Directors. We mulled over this and discussed it until midsummer. In the meantime, they were digging the hole for our building and we had had to commit ourselves on floorspace and a rough floor plan showing offices, selling areas, etc. Finally we decided on a plan of action. We expected between 6,000 to 6,500 students for our autumn term—an increase of roughly 20% over the previous year. Our old text department had been laid out for about half that many. We needed to expand it for autumn regardless of what system we used. The administration had decided to combine our lunch counter with other campus food operations instead of putting it in our new store. We therefore decided to move the lunch counter now and use that additional space for textbooks, and set it up in such a way that it could be operated either with clerks or as self service. Registration was set for a Friday and Saturday, with school starting the following Monday. We decided to use self service Friday and Saturday, shift to a clerk type of operation on Monday if necessary, and back to self service as soon as the confusion had subsided. We felt that we must try self service before we committed ourselves to it in the new store.

The remodeling was accomplished at a cost of about $350. It was done as inexpensively as possible because of our impending move. We wanted to use this system even on Monday, if possible, because we knew that that would be the real test. We therefore put a lot of thought and effort into it and did everything possible to make it work. We printed our shelf labels rather than typing them so that they could be read much more easily. We put a map of the text department on the front of our book list, showing just where each department was located. We used huge signs to label the departments. We put four helpers in the section with signs on them which read: “Ask me for help.” We wanted to anticipate all of our troubles. We thought that the students would stop to visit in the text department instead of getting their books and moving out, so we put in a temporary sound system with a microphone and record player, and cut a record that could be played over and over, telling them abruptly but humorously to get their books and get out so that someone else could get in. This shows what extremes we went to, and still we lost a lot of sleep over it, and didn’t dare to definitely commit ourselves to it for our big day. We had never been able to handle our whole student body efficiently the first day of school using a tried and tested system. Now we were expecting 1,000 more than usual. We just couldn’t convince ourselves that we should turn 6,000 students loose in there—especially with 2,500 of them Freshmen.

The first day of registration was slow and didn’t really give us a test, so that night we ran off a few thousand handbills on our Ditto machine, and told them in effect to “Buy their books now and avoid the rush.” We passed these out all day Saturday at registration, but again we were disappointed. It seemed that very few people were in the store all day, but when we checked out the cash registers, we were amazed to find that we had our largest day since the previous autumn opening! We operate on the quarter system, and our receipts had been larger than our opening day of the previous winter or spring terms, and had been more than half as large as our first day of school a year ago. We were amazed and elated. Now we knew it would work. Needless to say, we continued with self service on opening day, and have done so ever since.

We were very busy on opening day, and had about all we could handle. Several weak spots showed up in our system, but we were able to take care of most of those at once, and our students got their books much faster and with less trouble than usual. We controlled the entrance so that we could cut off the inflow if necessary, but by two o’clock things were going so smoothly that we didn’t find that necessary. After that our doorman was trying to hurry them in instead of holding them out. We found the microphone and loud speaker system to be invaluable. We didn’t really need the record we had cut, although we played it a few times just for laughs, but we found it very important to be able to talk to the customers and give them instructions over the sound system. For example, we found that our cashiers were being slowed down by students who waited to write out their checks after we had added up their book bills on the register. All day we announced that they should write their checks before they reach the cashier, and have their activity cards ready for identification. This eliminated a very serious bottleneck. We may not need this sound system later, but for the first few times, I think it is indispensable.

Things went along more smoothly than we anticipated, and by mid-afternoon all of our troubles seemed to be over. We used five cashiers and a check out line for G.I.’s and all of them were very busy. I should say, however, that we were equipped with rather slow cash registers and used inexperienced cashiers. I believe three good cashiers on the best equipment could have handled it as well. Unfortunately, I can’t give you the figures on our operation, but I can compare them with last year for you, using percentages. In each of the tables below, the first two columns list each day’s sales as a percentage of the sales on the first day of classes in 1951. The third column lists each day’s sales as a percentage of the sales on the first day of classes in 1952.

AUTUMN QUARTER

                                   1951    1952    1952

1st Day of Reg.           11%     20%     16%

2nd Day of Reg.         19        63        49

1st Day of Classes       100      130      100

2nd Day of Classes     40        30        23

3rd Day of Classes      14        11        8

WINTER QUARTER

1st Day of Classes       100%   250%   100%

2nd Day of Classes     96        97        39

3rd Day of Classes      67        47        19

Last year we used 35 people in the text department on our big day. This year we used 11, including the cashiers. I have summed it up for a lot of people this way. This year on opening day we handled 1,000 (or 20%) more students with one-third of the help and did one-third more volume. In the winter quarter we had pre-registration and started classes immediately after the Christmas holidays, so we had no opportunity to serve part of our students before the first day of classes. We therefore did two and one-half times the volume of the corresponding day the previous year. Again we handled this big increase in volume with about one half the help, and with much less difficulty. I think the above table shows quite clearly that we handled them with greater speed and efficiency, because toward the end of the first week our business had dropped under that for last year. In other words, last year they came in late in the week for their books because they couldn’t get in earlier.

I can’t leave this subject without making two other points. First, the students love it; and second, it doesn’t take more space. I spent most of my time down around the checkout stands that first day and asked a lot of students how they liked it. Many more came up and told me without being asked, and I heard others talking about it among themselves. I didn’t hear one remark unfavorable to self service! They really liked it. It took them less time and wasn’t nearly as hard for them as standing in line and waiting for service. This is the way they like to shop. Many of them said how much better it was than last year, and several told me how much better it was than the way they did it at some other university. But the best of all was a remark I overhead. We have a new president at our school, and of course he didn’t k now how we sold books last year or this year, but this student said to his friend; “Say, this is the way to buy books, that President Wilkinson is really on the ball!” Of course our employees liked it best of all. That first day the customers did most of the running around, and we just checked them out after they finished.

With regard to space, we handled 20% more students with about the same space we used the year before. It is true that we increased the size of our textbook department, but the new department was no larger than the old department plus the space outside the counter that the customers stood in on opening day, making it unusable for anything else. The diagrams show how we arrived at this conclusion:

Last year we had 580 square feet inside our textbook counter, and sold freshman English books from our trade book department, using another 240 square feet. There was also 600 square feet of space outside our textbook counter that customers occupied while waiting for service. This year we used 1,425 square feet, including space at the entrance and our checkout stands. This year we had no waiting, and sold hundreds of dollars worth of trade books, stationery and T-shirts that we sold out the first week. (We thought we had a six months’ supply on hand!) In short, we used 1,425 square feet this year and 1,420 square feet last year for our textbook department, but we served 20% more students and did 33 1/3% more volume this year.

I think that those of you who are thinking of trying textbook self service could go to any modern grocery store and see an ideal setup for selling textbooks. I believe that we should fixture rather inexpensively, because textbooks, like groceries, are a low markup item. I think also that low shelves or tier tables in the center with higher units around the walls would be proper textbook fixturing. With this arrangement, when a student enters the text department, he can see the whole area at a glance and can see where the history books are, where the English books are, etc., and go right to them. We are using this type of arrangement in our new store and will know more about its effectiveness soon.

Here are a few other details that perhaps should be mentioned:

1. In labeling our book shelves we find it very important to let students know whether books are required or recommended.
2. We find that we sell more reference books with self service than before. For example, we ran out of the Handbook of Chemistry & Physics the first day of the autumn term, and we had planned our stock to take care of autumn and winter terms.
3. At the suggestion of Florence Beers, of the University of Utah bookstore, we now put a card on the shelf when we run out of a title, telling the students how many books were re-ordered, when they were ordered, when they are expected, and urging them to place a special order so that a copy will be reserved for them.
4. We had students leave their books outside the text department during the first ten days, but since then we have allowed them to carry their books in with them. After rush period, we set it up with the entrance and exit side by side, so one person can control the whole operation and do filing or other work at the same time. The books students bring with them at the first of the term are a problem. We are thinking of trying the paper bag system next term.

Now that we have tried self service for two terms, we will never go back to the other system. There is no question but that we can sell more books in less time with the same space by using self service than in any other way. At the same time, our rush day problems have certainly decreased. This is the first time in fifteen years in the store that we have been congratulated by students on our good service on opening day. Dozens of students actually did this in the autumn term.