Dive Brief:

• Amazon is adding three more universities to its college pickup program: University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Santa Barbara, and University of Cincinnati.

• The University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Purdue University already have Amazon pickup centers, dubbed “Campus Pick-up Points,” which have manned service counters and lockers for pick up.

• Amazon is growing its campus-centered operations, with co-branded bookstores at University of California at Davis and Purdue University as well as unmanned locker-based pickup at several other campuses.

Dive Insight:

Amazon’s college-based business is still nascent, but it’s nevertheless a challenge to Barnes & Noble Education, which dominates the space. Barnes & Noble spun off its college bookstore business earlier this year in an effort to better focus on what is one of the strongest sides of its business.

Barnes & Noble hasn’t done well in its competition with Amazon in e-books and e-readers; despite efforts to revitalize its approach, including a partnership with Samsung to manufacture its Nook reader, Amazon’s Kindle business dominates. Now that it’s a separate company, Barnes & Noble won’t have to deal with Amazon’s incursion into the space. If Amazon can muscle into Barnes & Noble Education’s campus dominance, however, that could spell serious trouble for the education spinoff.