Brian McLellan
The Corsair
Students wanting to save money on books for the upcoming summer and fall terms may be looking off campus.
With the opening of Textbook Brokers across from the Pensacola State baseball field on 12th Avenue, along with the longstanding Lemox Books on Underwood Avenue, the Pensacola State College bookstore has more competition these days, and students have more options.
“When you’re an off campus store, you have to be as competitive as you can,” said Textbook Brokers owner Daniel Martin. “If I see that another store is charging less than I am, then I lower my price. It’s that simple.”
Textbook Brokers offers binders as a low-cost alternative to hardcover or paperback binding. Binders are printed on loose pages and bound together in a three-ring folder, which often saves students more than half the price of a regular textbook.
However, Ed Lemox, owner and operator of Lemox Books, has a different take on the binders.
“Sure it can save money up front, but if you wanted to save that money and not be able to sell (the textbook) back then you might as well rent it,” Lemox said.
While Textbook Brokers is offering the loose-leaf versions of various texts, both the Pensacola State College Bookstore, operated by Follet, and Lemox sell only professionally bound books.
“Professors often call and complain that we are selling incomplete used binder versions, and we assure them that we have followed their course request and did not sell these versions,” said Beth Smithers, manager of the Pensacola State College bookstore. “Because our competitors don’t have a contract with the school, they aren’t held to the same standards.”
A recent addition at both the campus bookstore and Lemox has been the option for students to rent their textbooks.
“The obvious benefit to renting as opposed to buying is that (students) are only paying a fraction of what they would pay for a new or used book,” Smithers said.
Price listings of various books available to rent at the competing stores show that rental prices sometimes run as much as 60 percent off the price of a new textbook.
The ability to rent textbooks has been such a draw to perspective customers that Martin has decided to offer the rental option on his entire store’s used textbooks beginning in the summer.
While some contest that renting saves the customers money, Martin argues that the practice is really only saving the bookstores money.
“I could promote the rental option as a way to save money, but that would be false advertising. Really, economically, it doesn’t benefit the students,” Martin said. “When you think about the big picture, at least with me, (students are) going to get more savings by buying their books used and selling them back (at the end of term).”
Another benefit to renting, according to Smithers, is no worries about whether the bookstore will buy back a book. When publishers or instructors change editions of required textbooks, some bookstores won’t buy back the old edition because they can’t resell it. The student may have spent hundreds of dollars to purchase that textbook, with the intention of recouping part of the cost at the end of the semester.
“Book publishers and teachers are constantly changing editions of textbooks from semester to semester,” Smithers said. “Renting saves (students) the hassle that comes from expecting to be able to resell a book and finding out that we can’t buy it from them.”
Both Smithers and Lemox agree that the rental option has not really affected their buybacks.
“We might only get back half of the books we sell any given semester,” Lemox said.
Smithers echoed that statistic, saying that “If we sell 300 copies of a particular text, we’ll only have students sell back about 150 or so to our store, according to our estimates.”
The biggest factor a student may use to determine which bookstore to use may be the amount he or she can get for selling the textbooks back.
“As long as the book is able to be resold, the first factor is based on our contract with Pensacola State. As long as a textbook is being used again, and we still need them to sell to incoming students, the Pensacola State Bookstore gives half of the new price, whether the book is bought in new or used condition,” Smithers said.
Another factor that Smithers says is “misunderstood” is the need of a certain text.
“We start searching the used book market months ahead of time to find the balance of books we need,” Smithers said. “By the time finals are over, we can’t just hope that we’ll get the number we need. Whatever we don’t obtain through buyback, we purchase from the publishers.”
Lemox added that his store orders copies of books they need from wholesalers “just to be safe.”
While Lemox says he tries to keep his buyback prices competitive with the Follett-run store on campus, Martin takes a more aggressive approach to doing business.
“Just the same as selling books, if I see or hear that another store is offering more than I am on a buyback and it’s a book that my store needs, I’ll offer more for (the book),” Martin said.
Martin also added that his store does not sell new textbooks with the exception of new editions, stating that selling new books is just not a good business idea.
“Most students are going to take a used book before they buy a new one,” Martin added.
Another trend among textbook purchasers has been buying and selling their books through Internet listings such as Amazon and Craigslist.
“I use Amazon for everything,” said Pensacola State student Lexie Woodson. “They have pretty much every book I need for less than what I’m paying at school and they always buy my books back even if (the bookstores) won’t.”
One thing that Martin, Smithers and Lemox all agree on is that digital books are the future of the business. For the time being, however, they each feel that choices and options will be what sets them apart from their competition.