Auburn Bookstore recognized for excellence, awaiting remodel project

The team at the Auburn University Bookstore has had a lot to celebrate lately.

Just as staff members were attending the Independent College Bookstore Association annual conference — and picking up an award for Excellence in Insignia Products — the university’s Board of Trustees accepted a project to refurbish the bookstore itself.

The planned renovation to the space in Haley Center involves providing a new floor, wall and ceiling finishes, new lighting, new cash-wrap and associated point-of-sale infrastructure, a new retail fixturing package and a newly configured space for the existing technology area. The project is estimated at $2.2 million.

Rusty Weldon, director of the bookstore, is looking forward to the evolution of the space, but credits so much of the store’s success — and need for a transformation — to his teammates.

Currently, the bookstore employs 25 full- and part-time staff, with about 60 student workers. Weldon said the team earned this year’s Excellence in Insignia Products award from the Independent College Bookstore Association (ICBA) because of last year’s results for clothing and Auburn gifts.

ICBA, a collective group of college retail stores that are owned by their university or run by co-op, uses annual data reported from about 100 of its member stores to acknowledge comparative performance results and trends in several categories.

Weldon said Auburn was recognized for its overall sales performance and metrics, including inventory planning and turnover.

“This award basically represents that our team of buyers are at the top of their profession in what they do and that the Auburn University Bookstore overall has results that are above the rest of our peers nationally,” he said.

The Auburn bookstore has been recognized by ICBA in the past, earning Excellence in Insignia Products in 2020, Excellence in Technology in 2018, Excellence in Course Materials Management in 2013 and 2017 and Store of the Year in 2016. 

 For Weldon, the recognition validates the caliber of work he sees every day.

“It makes me so incredibly proud and humble to see our Auburn people achieve so much,” he said. “One of the factors in this award is store space. Our space in Haley is the smallest of any of our peers, yet we make every inch count.

“This team wrestles with selecting the best options for all of the Auburn Family and has much less space to produce those sales than other college stores.”

Weldon specifically called out Paige Pearson, Samantha Fann, Teresa Dickman and Saufeeyah Purvis, who collectively have over a century of retail expertise, for “making the Auburn University Bookstore a destination of fun and tradition for Auburn.”

“Whether it be a family finishing a campus tour or coming to celebrate a graduation, this team has the selection of merchandise for families to take a bit of Auburn back home with them. It’s the most fun work on campus, and it’s wonderful to be recognized for it.”

Bookstore visitors — online and in-store — likely noticed improvements in the past year, especially the launch of a new partnership with lululemon, the popular athletic and lifestyle brand. Weldon said adding a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which led to an improved website, was a significant challenge for the team, making their high sales that much more remarkable.

Last year, the bookstore recorded almost 188,000 transactions in-store and online and charged another 170,000 digital units for All Access digital course materials. 

“Both the new system and partnership with lululemon took more than a year’s worth of planning and effort,” said Weldon. “However, this team took those responsibilities seriously and the hard work has paid off. We couldn’t have done it without the Auburn Family’s support.”

The renovation project is slated to begin in March and conclude before the start of the fall semester.