PROVIDENCE – The two largest private operators of college and university bookstores in the country have submitted bids for the five-year contract to manage the bookstores at the four Community College of Rhode Island in Warwick, Lincoln, Newport and Providence, according to the Rhode Island Division of Purchases, the state’s procurement office.
Westchester, Ill.-based Follett Higher Education Group and Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Barnes & Noble College Booksellers LLC were the only bidders who submitted proposals by the March 27 deadline.
The Division of Purchases issued a request for proposals on Feb. 20 and assumed a five-year contract beginning on July 1 with renewals “based on vendor performance and the availability of funds.”
The move follows a nationwide trend toward college bookstore privatization. The four CCRI bookstores lost $622,033 over the four-year period from 2018-22, according to CCRI spokesperson Amy Kempe, who told Providence Business News earlier this month that the school anticipates a 3% commission rate from a private vendor would bring $176,250 in profit back to the college annually, a turnaround from the roughly $155,000 per year that bookstore operations have lost since 2019.
Kempe said the revenue decline was due primarily to changing spending habits and proliferation of online options. And operational costs were set to increase further after the plan to bring on seven additional full-time bookstore employees, increasing labor costs from $514,342 in fiscal year 2022 to $1.2 million in fiscal year 2023.
FHEG was a family-owned business for more than 150 years before the company was purchased by private equity firm Jefferson River Capital in February 2022. It currently operates 1,200 local bookstores and 1,700 “eFollett” online stores, according to its website. Former gubernatorial candidate and executive for CVS Health Corp., Helena Foulkes, was appointed as executive chairwoman to the company’s board of directors earlier this year.
BNCB now operates 1,388 college, university, and K-12 school bookstores, comprised of 785 physical bookstores and 603 virtual bookstores, according to its latest quarterly financial report.
Christopher Allen is a PBN staff writer. You may contact him at Allen@PBN.com.
