<p>I know at some schools certain books can only be bought through the bookstores. But with textbooks printed and used nationwide why do people by and rent from the bookstore? The markup is so high.</p>
<p>In class today we were discussing the book we needed and a student told the class our textbook cost about $90 to buy and $30 to rent. Basically everyone in the class groaned because they knew they had to spend so much money on it.</p>
<p>And then another girl told the class she bought hers in decent condition for 21 cent on Amazon. Everyone was shocked.</p>
<p>It's like no one even looked online for the book. They just accepted they had to buy it from the bookstore at whatever crazy price lol</p>
<p>Most of the students I know that have been in that situation only bought them from the bookstore because they didn’t know there was another option. I also know others that got them from the bookstore because they were offered decent discounts from scholarships to get them from there. And others because they had to buy them last moment.</p>
<p>@aldfigo I see what you’re saying although some of those issues could be solved by planning ahead and getting the right ISBN number before class starts :)</p>
<p>Always check the bookstore offering before looking online. In one case, we had an intro. book and the department arranged with the bookstore to get a combination e-book + loose leaf book + computerized tutoring (optional hw) all bundled together for way less than just the hard cover book. Students who bought online got their books later, paid more and could not use the optional tutoring software.</p>
<p>That’s some great advice. I’m planning on enrolling in a college class and I never considered that before. I mostly hear how the online price is always the best and never considered that some schools made deals like that with bookstores.</p>
<p>Sometimes, the bookstore has about the same or lower price for a used book once you add in the shipping cost for an online purchase. Or, sometimes the price difference is small for a new book from the bookstore vs. a used book online + shipping. You have to compare.</p>
<p>Sometimes, the only available used copies online are heavily highlighted or marked, especially if it’s a book you want to keep for your field. Some students find a highlighted copy too distracting to read and study.</p>
<p>This is an excellent question. From what I’ve seen it’s generally one of 3 possibilities: Their parents are rich and the kids are too spoiled to care; they have never heard of online sales or too afraid to put credit card / bank info online; they’re imbeciles. The only reason I’d ever consider buying from the stores is I’ve added a class 3 weeks in and there’s a test tomorrow, so I really must have the book right away. Fortunately 2 local bookstores that have been scamming students for decades went out of business recently.</p>
<p>If they were scamming students, why did they go out of business. I have found hat many campuses are renting textbooks and the prices are getting better. The cheap books available online come from individuals and you never know the condition or I when hey will show up. I ordered one last year for only a penny but it took 5 weeks to show up.</p>
<p>At D’s school, many of the students order everything in advance through the bookstore and pick up their bag of books on day 1. Many of them are very well-off, so to them it’s worth the convenience. Me, I’m the one scouring Amazon, comparing against the online bookstore price (like many, it’s a B&N), checking whether I can get it cheaper through an Amazon Prime vendor or paying shipping, checking condition of the books and making sure there are lots of positive reviews, and following up by checking Half, Chegg, and other vendors. D did rent one book through the bookstore, but that was proprietary.</p>
<p>We did get burned this semester, but thankfully not too badly. Her literature professor dropped 2 books and added 1 after it was too late to update the online bookstore. Thankfully Amazon took the books back no problem. If she’d needed the new book right away I’d have had her get it at the bookstore, but she didn’t so it was ordered and sent using Amazon Prime.</p>
<p>We had to buy the kid’s books through high school as well, so I’m an old hand at playing this game…</p>
<p>I always try to look up the books/get the ISBN numbers and order ahead of time from Amazon, for example. However, it doesn’t always work. 1) some teachers do NOT send in their orders in a timely fashion, and it gets to be so late it’s easier to order at the college bookstore for easy pick up; 2) sometimes a teacher orders a book that isn’t even in PRINT, yet, or orders something out of stock, and then it’s a hassle to try and get the book returned with D is ‘over there’ and I’m ‘over here’ with all the return stickers/boxes/etc. If something doesn’t work out or is suspicious (super late order/book online says it’s not even in print, yet) then I order those books from the college bookstore; 3) when ISBN numbers don’t match up, I use the college bookstore. It’s no good getting the wrong edition. I’m with you, InigoMontoya: I try to scour the online sites, too, and it’s amazing how much cheaper the texts can be, and I’m talking like fifty dollars difference…sometimes. I noticed for this semester, the difference in price on a couple of books was just a buck or two, so I thought, what the heck, we’ll use the college bookstore on them. :)</p>
<p>P.S. At a school where I work, I think if a student has financial aid that ‘covers books’ then s/he can buy the books at the bookstore and ‘charge them’ and I don’t think that is possible via an off-site bookstore. Not sure, though, but I know many, many people with financial aid can use it for books and they use the college bookstore.</p>
<p>I just realized there is another reason some students get their books from the college bookstore. Many of my students do not live with parents/ are independent, but they do not all have credit cards, so they cannot go online to buy books at amazon and other cyberspace locations; they use ‘charge back’ to the financial aid to buy the books on campus and/or do it with cash anyway because of a lack of credit cards.</p>
<p>@lawrencemom- if Amazon is significantly cheaper, lack of a credit card should not be an issue. You can walk in to many stores and purchase Amazon gift cards that can be used for online payment. Another trick I use is to save my loose change all year and when it’s time to buy books, bring it to a Coinstar machine and convert it into an Amazon gift certificate. Coinstar charges you if you redeems coins for cash, but there’s no charge for redeeming change for gift certificates.</p>
<p>At my school, they give you price comparisons with other websites like Amazon, and at the school store the book would be $80 and they say Amazon has it at $90. Then I check for myself and on Amazon, it was actually like $10. Some students take the school store’s word for it, but most of us are hunting for PDF’s or cheap used copies on amazon.</p>
<p>My mom prefers I buy from Barnes & Noble (only bookstore we know besides my college’s) because she doesn’t trust using her credit card online. Also to help support real physical stores! Its a shame Borders closed down & we wouldn’t want that to happen to Barnes & Noble ya know?</p>
<p>As an example of possible savings…this semester a textbook NEW at the bookstore: $181. NEW for RENT at the bookstore: $131. Ebay: used, fine condition: $75. It CAN be worth a lot to compare prices.</p>
<p>My D and I check course book lists as soon as they are available and compare prices of bookstore and online. You do have to be careful with editions - especially with major math/science texts and if required online-access codes are included. It’s a shame, but many perfectly good used texts won’t be re-used because it’s cheaper to buy the NEW package deal with textbook and online access than to buy a USED text and pay for the online code separately. (also publishers change the picture on the cover and the edition number - and little else - so older editions lose value quickly.) Such a waste.</p>
<p>@InigoMontoya: thanks for the tip re: gift cards/saving/converting cash in the coin box to gift cards. I will pass that tip along to my students in the future.</p>
<p>@Sophia7X - it’s in the school’s best interest to get you to buy from their preferred buyer, as the school typically gets a kickback from all textbooks purchased. I prefer to buy textbooks from the cheapest vendor, and then use the savings to make a tax-deductible donation to the school. That way the school still gets money, but at less cost to me.</p>