Back to School for Less: Online Textbooks
By Jonathan Berohn
With Fall, of course, comes school. With school, when you’re a college student, come bills for textbooks—very large, ugly, several-hundred dollar bills for most students. If you happen to move on to graduate school, the bills only get worse.
Yes, school bookstores offer used books to save you a few dollars, but when used books can still run you over $50 a piece at the bookstore, it’s time to find another solution. Fortunately there is an easy solution to be found online.
Why Online?
Obviously, if you plan to save money by buying books online, you want to make sure they’re cheaper. Online sales do hit you up for one cost that you don’t have to pay at the school bookstore. That’s postage. On the other hand, there are a lot of free postage deals available, and if you live in a state that charges sales tax on books, you get to escape that by buying online (tip number one—don’t buy from a company based in your home state or you will have to pay sales tax).
The Online Book Stores
When you decide to take the plunge into online text books, you really should start and stop with one of the two major players in online book sales
Both companies offer new books, of course, but you can buy those at the bookstore and save on postage. The bonus here is that both companies hook you up with other sellers of used books. Here’s where the major savings wait for you to find them.
Unlike your traditional college bookstore used prices, online used prices go very low. What sells for $65 in the store (used) often goes for $40-45 online. With cheaper books, you can often come by the $20 used book for under $5. The reason behind this is simple supply and demand. Online sellers don’t have the monopoly your local bookstore enjoys, so competition drives down prices. In addition, you can sell your own used textbooks, so student resales drive prices down even more.
Purchase Security
One thing to remember about buying used books is that you generally aren’t buying directly from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Both companies take measures, however, to ensure that you don’t get ripped off. To take Amazon as an example, you pay Amazon directly, and they guarantee satisfaction. Additionally, buyers can leave feedback for sellers, which gives you a good idea of their track record and reliability.
