Over the past two days I’ve covered a few trends from January rush including the increasingly competitive campus bookstore, custom publications, and average order value and the rental factor. Today I am going to discuss homework/learning systems.

If you are not familiar with homework systems or learning systems, you need to get up to speed because I feel certain in saying that you’ll see them increasingly used over the next 12-18 months. These systems are not new to the market but publishers have new reason to make them work. Let’s look at a Wiley title as an example.

A traditional accounting class may use the Kieso’s Accounting Principals (10th edition). The book has a list price of $176.49. In a traditional model, the publisher would sell about 30% of the books new with the other 70% being sold as used and rented. Remember, the publisher doesn’t make money on the used or rental books. Now, let’s switch it up: instead of getting the school to adopt the physical book, Wiley gets the school to adopt Wiley Plus, an online teaching and learning solution that includes this title and others. The cost of this product per title is less than the list price for the title. While you may think this is bad for the publisher, it isn’t because the sell-through increases from 30% to 100%. While online retailers may have access to these titles, they will be limited in their ability discount the price. Furthermore, students will be able to buy this from the campus bookstore or the publisher themselves cutting traditional middle players out of the market.

As the market has changed, the publishers have adapted with custom publications and new learning systems to maintain their market-share and protect themselves from new pressures that enter the market. Expect more as competition gets even stiffer.