ICBA’s educational institutes offer a comprehensive, immersive examination of pressing industry topics. Through a combination of professional development lectures, case studies, and collaborative learning, our students gain an in-depth understanding of the issues facing college stores and leave with knowledge that can immediately be put into action. ICBA Institutes are held in person in the days leading up to our annual Conference.
Gain a practical understanding of the shifting landscape of today’s college store
Develop skills to help you make better-informed business decisions
Design well-informed strategies that address the needs of today’s students
Re-define the parameters of success
UPCOMING ICBA INSTITUTES
ICBA Institutes are typically held in the days preceding the ICBA Annual Conference. Most recently at our ICBA Conference in February, 2025 in Chicago, we hosted a Visual Merchandising Institute. Save the date and watch for updates on an Institute to be announced for ICBA February, 2026 in Jacksonville, FL!
PAST ICBA INSTITUTES
The ICBA General Merchandise Buyers Institute (GMBI) features 9+ hours of intense programming on multiple aspects of General Merchandise buying, including assortment planning, financial planning, vendor relations, visual merchandising, marketing, pricing strategies, and more.
Key Modules:
Philosophies of Total Merchandise Management
Principles of Financial Analysis & Inventory Management
Key Performance Indicators & Business Drivers
The Psychology of Price
Visual Merchandising Tips, Strategies, & Techniques
Building Healthy Supplier/Retailer Partnerships
Sending the Right Messages to Your Customers
The ICBA Visual Merchandising Institute offers powerful, real-life content focused on practical application of Visual Merchandising techniques. The program consists of a series of modules and alternates between presentations and hands-on workshops. Students learn the important role Virtual Merchandising plays as “secret salesperson,” reinforcing the fundamentals of traditional visual merchandising, while incorporating new digital marketing concepts, technologies, and methodologies.
Key Modules:
Elements of Visual Merchandising
Assortment Planning
Marketing/Branding Techniques
Customer Engagement
The ICBA Course Materials Institute focuses on providing a practical understanding of the changing course materials landscape, developing new skill sets, and pragmatically re-defining the parameters of success. The Course Materials Institute features the content that is most relevant to today’s Course Materials buyer/manager as presented by industry experts.
Key Modules:
Financial and Operational KPIs
Sourcing Strategies and Options
Publisher and Wholesaler Relations
Defining the “Right” Rental Program
The Customer Experience
Campus and Faculty Relations
The ICBA Apparel Institute provides a comprehensive educational experience for Apparel Buyers at all skill levels. Featuring over 15 hours of content, workshops, and case studies, the Apparel Institute focuses on what Buyers need to know to Strengthen and Enhance their professional development, merchant skills, and overall operation.
Key Modules:
Financial Management
Assortment Management
Visual Merchandising
Vendor Relations
Marketing
eCommerce
ICBA ONLINE INSTITUTES
ICBA Online Institutes are our newest education program offering, designed to provide high-quality, relevant, actionable information to our Members. Our Online Institutes are a spinoff of our popular ICBA Institutes that take place each year, in-person, before our annual Conference. They are intensive courses of study that expose participants to the latest thinking and best practices in specific management disciplines.
Recognizing that some stores have limited travel capabilities or might prefer to have the curriculum delivered over several weeks, we wanted to make that same level of advanced professional development content available virtually, in a multi-part series of one-hour webinars.
UPCOMING ONLINE INSTITUTES
No Online Institutes are currently scheduled. Watch your email and this space for updates. In the meantime, ICBA Members can catch up on past Online Institutes below; all past ICBA Institutes are available for free. For Members who are logged in, the password for each Institute will be listed in red text below the Institute description.
PAST ICBA ONLINE INSTITUTES
VOICE: The Value of Independent College Store Excellence (Summer 2022)
The VOICE Online Institute covers the three areas of ICBA’s new initiative VOICE: Value of Independent College Store Excellence. VOICE focuses on advocacy, customizable communication resources, and education in helping ICBA Members to communicate their story. The sessions cover VOICE’s direct advocacy component where ICBA communicates directly with external administrative audiences. The VOICE Resources Library is the second component, comprised of templates and examples sourced from Members themselves that other Members can use - from annual reports, and departmental/faculty email templates to signage and more. The education component includes the comprehensive Healthy Store Checklist, which helps Members to communicate their story about operation & innovation.
The VOICE Online Institute includes the following sessions:
VOICE: Overview and direct advocacy to the administration audience
Using your VOICE: The Resource Library and educational opportunities through the Healthy Store Checklist
This video is password protected and available to ICBA Members only.
Social Media & Email Marketing: Strategies for Success Year-Round & in Times of Uncertainty (Spring 2020)
In this three-part webinar series, Marie Hale of @revenue and Sue Koch, Social Media Success Catalyst, discuss what is developing and trending in the world of social media and email marketing, as well as how to use these tools to quickly adapt to meet the needs of your customers. We'll take a closer look at social media and email separately, then bring it all together with a deep dive into how to use the analytics from both to ensure you're always in tune with your customers.
The Social Media & Email Marketing Institute includes the following sessions:
The Social Refresh: The Latest Tips & Tactics in an Ever-Changing Landscape
Email Marketing that Creates Engagement: Connection, Community, and Revenue
Metrics that Matter: Determining Success in Social Media & Email Marketing
This video is password protected and available to ICBA Members only.
The Optimized Bookstore Website (Spring 2019)
We believe that the experience your customers have online is as important as the experience they have in your store. Just as you make regular adjustments to your store’s floor or displays, you need to make regular adjustments to your website to meet your customers’ needs. But how do you know that your customers are finding what they’re looking for on your website? And what can you do to make it more effective without breaking your budget? We have good news: there are small changes you can make along the way to improve your customer experience online.
Web expert Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media provides valuable insight and knowledge to enable you to be more effective selling and promoting your products online. Each session includes Andy's reviews of bookstore websites, in which he gives feedback on what to change or enhance.
The Optimized Bookstore Website is divided into three sessions:
First Clicks: From Home Page to Top Products
Deeper Clicks and eCommerce Sales
The Connected Bookstore Website
This video is password protected and available to ICBA Members only.
Visual Merchandising Online Institute (Spring 2018)
The Visual Merchandising Online Institute (VMOI) reviews and builds on effective VM strategies and techniques with the goal of uniting VM as a signature marketing tool and key component in driving conversions and sales. Each of the webinars is valuable as a standalone session, but together, they provide a comprehensive array of tips and ideas to maximize your VM efforts. Whether you have full-time VM associates, or if VM is a part of everyone’s job, the VMOI will emphasize practical and realistic techniques that don’t require a big budget or a massive store remodel.
The VMOI will help you improve the shopping experience, beginning the moment the shopper engages and interacts with the visual environment to the moment they exit the store as a satisfied customer!
The VMOI is divided into four sessions:
Exteriors: The First Marketing Moment
The Transition Zone: Engagement Starts Here
Touch Please: VM Techniques to Support Personalization, Engagement, & Sales
Turf-Defending: The Importance of Clear Branding and Visual Communication Across Departments
This video is password protected and available to ICBA Members only.
Managing Your Most Important Resource (Fall 2017)
Managing Your Most Important Resource was developed exclusively for ICBA by Audrey Southard, former SVP or Human Resources for Follett Higher Education Group. As an integrated series, it represents a comprehensive program, from HR strategy and succession planning to the nitty gritty of interviewing and performance appraisal.
Managing Your Most Important Resource is divided into four sessions:
Recruiting for a Service and Value Mindset
Onboarding for Rush
Effective Performance Management
Looking to the Future: Succession Planning
This video is password protected and available to ICBA Members only.
