David LaRock
Published: December7, 2005
Black Friday is notorious for being the busiest day for holiday shopping. The week after exams is the same for college bookstores across the country.
Students are in a rush to sell back their used textbooks and purchase their new ones for the upcoming semester. This system has been in place for years, but with all the technology and Internet shopping, is there a better way for students to purchase textbooks?
Most students understand the concept of buying books online but are not aware of the dramatic price differences between online stores and college campus bookstores.
The Beecher, Peena & Bittinger College Algebra Book, second edition 2005, is the book used in the most common, basic math class, “college algebra MAC 1105.”
At the PJC Bookstore, a new one will cost a student $109.50 while a used one will drop the price down to $87 Lemox Bookstore, right across campus, will sell a student the same book for $108.10 new, and $81.10 used.
Hendric Giles, a computer science major, thinks these prices are ridiculous.
“It’s crazy. For a college student nowadays, you got to really do some number crunching. Paying for classes then books, it’s definitely a financial toll,” he said.
To compare these textbook stores with online bookstores, the price drop is significant. On the world famous auction site, ebay.com, the same textbook new is going for $65 with free shipping and handling. Others sellers are selling this college algebra book used for $35, and just $6 for USPS Priority First shipping.
Web sites such as cheapesttextbooks.com will not only give you the best price on the textbooks, but will also compare prices from other web sites.
The leader in online books, amazon.com, is no different than the leading bookstore that you would walk into. Their $112.67 price tag for the textbook is the highest of all the sites that were compared. Other web sites such as half.com and powells.com sold MAC 1105 books at $59.99 and $80 respectively.
To search and purchase textbooks is just as easy as giving your schedule to one of the many assistants working at the bookstore. All you need is the ISBN. The ISBN is a 10-digit number used for identification. The ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number and is the unique fingerprint assigned to each textbook. You can find the ISBN number on the back cover of a book, near the bar code, and also inside near the copyright information. There might be other numbers but the one you want always has “ISBN” in front of the 10 digits. Once you have the ISBN, just type it in, and the book you want is right there at your fingertips.
Giles is no rookie to these online bookstores.
“I have been buying textbooks online since my freshman year. It is such a breeze to pay for them at a reduced price, and not worry about waiting in line.”
Lemox Bookstore will not buy back books purchased online. However, the PJC Bookstore does as long as all the necessary components are still intact.
The online shopping experience is still too much for some students to overcome.
Grant Czubinski, a general studies major, does not like the idea of exchanging information over the Internet.
“I don’t mind waiting in line to hand a living, breathing human my credit card or cash to buy a textbook. The thought of typing my personal information over the Internet is just too much to handle. Too many cases of identity theft are happening.”