The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks,
The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and
spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."
Schnucks store manager Tom Eakins knows he cannot delay preparing for what will once again turn Carbondale upside down - the return of SIUC students in the fall semester.
"Now is the time when we start thinking about all the stuff we're going to bring in prior to the students coming," Eakins said. "We have to."
All that "stuff" includes hiring new employees, adding to store inventories, planning promotions and giveaways and, in the case of Saluki Bookstore, trying to book bands to play.
"We'll have a band play for a couple hours every day during rush week," said Chris Ahart, who will take over as manager of Saluki Bookstore on Monday. "We always try to do some wacky stuff to get people to come out."
Ahart said his employees are working as fast as they can to get the store's marketing strategy intact for the start of the fall semester. He said that work includes planning with local radio stations, newspapers and the new student information packet that is given out to students each year.
Saluki Bookstore, which is located on East Grand Avenue across from Pinch Penny Pub, will also be offering discounts to incoming freshmen who had reserved textbooks with the store. Ahart said those freshmen will receive coupons for free bumper stickers, $3 off hats and shirts, and $10 reduced from a clothing purchase of at least $50.
710 Book Store, 710 S. Illinois Ave., is also developing promotions for the start of the semester. Store manager Randy Johnson said the store will be giving away items such as calendars, Saluki football schedules and, for the first time, water to parents who accompany their children to the bookstore on the Friday and Saturday before the fall semester begins.
Aside from store promotions and giveaways, Johnson said 710 will try to be as involved with the University's welcoming events as it can.
"We participate in everything we can possibly participate with on campus like the open house at the Rec Center and things of that nature," Johnson said. "We'll also allow student groups to come in and set up stuff on the sidewalk."
Most Carbondale businesses say sidewalk traffic will be at the highest point of the year during the days revolving around the start of the fall semester. A co-manager at the Wal-Mart Supercenter said the amount of his store's sales from the summer usually double toward the beginning of the semester.
The manager said although Wal-Mart has ordered a little more stock than the store normally carries for the start of the fall semester, the increased business makes it hard for employees to keep certain items on the shelves.
"It's hard just because of the bulkiness of some items like futons," the Wal-Mart manager said. "We have enough, but it's just hard to keep a lot out at one time because they're so big. Small dorm refrigerators and TVs are the same way."
Eakins said commodities like fresh meat, bread and milk are in high demand at Schnucks because, when students get to Carbondale, they don't have fresh food.
"We have a significant increase in business, especially during the first weekend," Eakins said. "It's really across the board because we find that not only the student population comes into town, we just have more people in town. All the businesses gear up with their labor, so there's more people."
Each of Carbondale's bookstores as well as Wal-Mart, Schnucks and Kroger west said an effort is made to hire new employees to combat the new wave of customers. Some businesses like Wal-Mart and 710 fill their labor shortages by hiring temporary employees.
"We normally hire anywhere from 40 to 50 relatively temporary employees to work back-to-school," Johnson said. "Right now, we hire a lot of girls to work registers for the week before, the week of and the week after the fall semester begins."
Jeff Summers, the acting manager of University Bookstore in the Student Center, said his store has been able to buck the hiring trend because of the high number of returning employees.
"I think all our hiring has been done, so I guess we're ready," Summers said. "There are a number of returning students from last semester who are coming back to help us, and I guess we've brought on about seven."
As for the number of students returning to SIUC, each of the bookstores said it's ready for the challenge.
Ahart said although he has not yet heard any information about the University's fall enrollment figures, Saluki Bookstore will carry more textbooks than last year because of the big response the store got from freshmen reserving their books.
However, Ahart said he wants students to know that his bookstore is catering to more than just the freshman class.
"There's people who've gone to University Bookstore their first year and paid more money for their books and didn't get as much used stuff," Ahart said. "We kind of really deal more with people who are taking upper level classes like the 300s and 400s. We have more used books than anybody else, so they end up coming here."
Ahart said about 60 percent of the store's textbooks are used.
Johnson said 710 was encouraged last year by the increase in freshman enrollment, and he expects that increase to continue.
"We're gearing up for a busy August, and hopefully they'll have an even bigger freshman class than they had last year," Johnson said.
Each of the bookstores said the second or third week of September usually signals a drop-off in textbook sales as classes have already been in session for a few weeks. At that point, the stores tend to focus more on clothing and University apparel.
"We're set with store merchandise," Summers said about University Bookstore. "We've got a lot of great new stuff. There's some very nice Saluki merchandise in here like new shirts, new blankets, new mugs."
Johnson said while 710 does focus more on gift items than textbooks in the latter part of the semester, that trend has lessened in recent years.
"We have to keep a focus on textbooks just about year round now because the University has a lot of classes that start and stop in the middle of the semester," Johnson said. "Plus, I think as people's budgets tighten up, they have a tendency to put things off. So, we try to still have books available for them when they're ready to come in."
Whenever students come in to buy items, Johnson said the key is making it easy, especially at the start of the semester.
"We just try to make it as easy as possible for them," Johnson said. "We understand there's a lot of stuff going on in the first week, so we try to make it so they can get in and out as fast as they can.
"The earlier you get what you need, the less headaches you're going to have."
