Why doesn't the bookstore have my Titles?

Despite Titles' efforts, empty shelves in the Tank are a common sight at the start of term.

Titles is the students’ source on campus for all things textbook related. Although its main location is now mostly dedicated to McMaster paraphernalia and school supplies, the store’s primary focus is books.

With such a focus, it’s hard to believe that every September, students are faced with empty shelves and backordered textbooks.

“[Textbook ordering] is always a challenge,” said Lesley Mills, Accounting Manager at Titles.

Donna Shapiro, the bookstore’s director, explained further.

“We have to be very cautious when we place an order that we can make sure either we’re going to sell out, or we’re going to sell enough … so we’re not ending up writing off stock at the end of the day.”

Titles is responsible for ordering books for hundreds of classes for the year. For the fall semester, it oversees over 2500 courses and course sections worth of materials. A further 2100 courses and sections are processed for the winter term.

Even with such a high volume of courseware, Titles is very careful to be conservative, which contributes to its availability levels.

“We don’t end up with a lot of money at the end of the day, so we try and minimize the return – shipping costs are a fairly substantial cost,” Mills explained.

Titles collects about 20 percent of the cost of every book, but much of that money is put towards rent, shipping and staffing the store. Returns to the publishers are costly, said Shapiro. And that’s not a cost anyone wants to incur.

“The university has put a lot more fiscal demands on us. The whole campus is asked to be more fiscally responsible than they were historically in some areas. This is just one area where we know we can save money for everybody.”

The bookstore faces a number of challenges in determining how much stock to order. The four Titles book buyers must consider a course’s estimated enrolment and its actual enrolment, as well as the book’s sell-through in previous years. The store never orders books for 100 percent of the class, because not all the students will buy it.

Mills described how the first-year physics course had over 800 students registered, but only 200 textbooks were sold.

“There’s a huge issue there,” she said. She also noted that peer-to-peer selling is one thing that can cut into the sales.

Much of the store’s September trouble comes from communication issues.

“I think our biggest challenge with book availability isn’t determining the number that we have to have … it’s finding out from the faculty member in a timely fashion what it is they’re going to use,” Shapiro said.

Despite this, the store administration has given up on setting deadlines for professors to choose their textbooks.

“A deadline means nothing, because nobody adheres to it,” claimed Shapiro, noting that there once was a deadline set for mid-July for September orders.

The store is afforded more flexibility with the emergence of eBooks, however. This new kind of book production, while useful and environmentally friendly, has forced Titles and its affiliated publishers to evolve.

“It’s a whole new world out there,” said Shapiro.

“For a book world that hadn’t changed for centuries upon centuries, you’re seeing such rapid changes now that the publishers can’t even keep up with the materials that they’re creating.”