Follett’s to close, sell all merchandise

Jessica Varona entered Follett's Orange Bookstore to rent a textbook for the first time. When she approached the register, she said, the cashier told her the store would be closing Feb. 24.

"This was my first and last experience with Follett's," said Varona, a sophomore international relations major.

Follett's, located in Marshall Square Mall, is closing for several reasons, including business competition, according to an article published in The Daily Orange on Monday.

Follett Corp. officials said in an email that the bookstore off Marshall Street is only one of more than 900 stores across the United States and Canada. Officials said although many factors went into deciding whether to close the store, it was no longer economically feasible in this case to keep it open.

Signs reading "50 percent storewide sale on all supplies, clothing, gifts" stand at the store's entrance. Inside, dwindling shelves disappoint students who are still looking to buy or rent textbooks. But no signs explicitly say the store is closing.

The deadline to return any books to Follett's has already passed. Store employees told customers who bought books Tuesday that they had two days to return any books with a store receipt.

Although the store is slated to close next month, many Syracuse University and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry students are still unaware.

Kyle Christensen, an undecided freshman in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, said he hadn't previously heard the bookstore was going out of business.

Christensen said he rented many books from Follett's last semester in an effort to save money. Now, he said, he's going to have to go to the SU Bookstore in the Schine Student Center.

"Now I guess I only have one option. That kind of sucks," he said.

Follett officials said the store will be holding sales and discounts on merchandise and apparel before closing.

"For whatever items are not sold during these scheduled sales," they said, "we will seek to sell to another retailer should the opportunity arise."

Officials said because they are an off-campus store, they do not have a direct affiliation with SU. However, officials said, "over time we have built a customer following, and we will be communicating with these customers through channels like email before officially closing our doors."

Emily Wilmott, a senior environmental studies major at ESF, also said she had no idea the store was closing.

Wilmott said the closing of Follett's is particularly frustrating because the store usually carries more ESF textbooks than the one in Schine.

"I can never find anything at the other bookstore," Wilmott said.

Now that Follett's is closing, students like Wilmott are forced to figure out where they will buy textbooks from after next month.

Wilmott said she is only going to buy her books from the SU Bookstore as a last resort. She said she prefers to get her books through online retailers, such as Amazon, because they are less expensive.

"Obviously, book prices are astronomical," Wilmott said. "It's really a lot of money for a book you're going to use once."

snbouvia@syr.edu