The bookstore located at the Riverpoint campus is moving its inventory to the main campus in Cheney in an effort to better consolidate its services.

Riverpoint bookstore manager John Wilson said rising online sales were a major factor in the decision to close the Riverpoint store.

“We’ve been selling online for three years, and each quarter is bigger than the quarter before, and this quarter is no exception,” Wilson said. “We’re doing more and more, and especially the classes that we have here in Spokane, a high percentage of them are graduate-level, and they seem to like the online idea better than coming into a bookstore.”

The University’s lease on the property was coming to an end, according to Cheney bookstore director Bob Anderson.

“Our lease had expired at the end of five years. Some of the sales weren’t as great as we had hoped, certainly. Hopefully by consolidating into the stronger store we can offer better services that way too,” Anderson said.
Students who only take classes at the Riverpoint campus will have to drive out to the Cheney bookstore or have their textbooks shipped to them.

“They can order on our website, which is bookstore.ewu.edu,” Wilson said. “All the information is there: the titles, the authors, the course numbers. It’s pretty easy to do. We can make it easy for them. A lot of students order for pickup at the store, so if they go out to Cheney they can pick it up easily at the store, or they can have it shipped to their house.”

To better accommodate Riverpoint students, the Cheney bookstore will be open on select Sundays.

“Usually we’re only open the first Sunday of each quarter,” Anderson said. “We’re going to try an additional Sunday each quarter, trying to create an additional day for students in Spokane. Hopefully that will help.”

Anderson said they are working on establishing a place at the Riverpoint campus for book buybacks at the end of this quarter.

“If it worked well we would certainly continue to do it for other quarters. But we would start with this quarter just to see what happens,” he said.

The Riverpoint bookstore is offering coupons for free shipping on textbooks for Riverpoint-based classes during winter quarter, in hopes to “ease the problem,” Wilson said.

Anderson said the bookstore is focusing on making this change as easy as possible. “We want students to certainly let us know how it’s impacting them,” he said. “We want to do everything we can to make it more beneficial or easier for them.”

He hoped Riverpoint students will be willing to drive out to the Cheney campus for more than just the bookstore.

“I realize it’s 15, 16 miles from here to Spokane,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll be willing to [make the drive], or they’ll want to come out and take part in some of the activities. There’s so much more programming, and other activities from Eagle Entertainment, and so many other things going on on the campus. We’re hoping students come out and take advantage of those.”

The Riverpoint bookstore will be open through Oct. 26. Hours are Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., and Fridays 11 a.m.-5 p.m.