By Bruce A. Love
If you or a child are about to start a semester of college, you know all about sticker price anxiety. Tuition is one thing, but books can also be a significant expense. This semester, my daughter estimated that her books would cost about $800 at the school bookstore. Ouch! After paying for tuition, room and board, and school activity fees, families are finding that it can be tough to scrape together enough to purchase books. Fortunately, campus bookstores are not the only place to buy books. Cost-conscious students quickly discover online sources for their scholarly needs.
My sister-in-law, Sue, has been buying textbooks online for several years. She finds that AbeBooks.com is a cheap and reliable place to buy school texts online. Of course, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble are reliable booksellers too, but you may find that you can do better with some of the sites that specialize in school books.
My daughter is a Junior in college and is also familiar with buying books online. Alysia’s preferred Web site for buying textbooks is CheapBooks.com. This site actually searches quite a few online stores to find the best book deals for students. Just enter the textbook’s title, author, or ISBN number, and CheapBooks will return all the best deals from Amazon, Borders, eBay, Half.com and others. Chances are you can find all the required books for less than half the price your school’s bookstore charges. CheapBooks also gives you links to stores, such as Chegg and BookRenter.com, that “rent” books to students by the semester. This drops the price of using the book even more, and is a great option for those “must take” subjects that students have no interest in after they get their grades!
When buying or renting textbooks online, there are several caveats. First, be aware that it takes longer to get your books when buying online than it does if you buy them from the school’s bookstore. Plan ahead or be prepared to be without a book for a week to 10 days unless you expedite the order. Also, visit the school bookstore and copy the all the particulars (including the price), and use that information for making decisions about online purchases. Next, make sure that the book is written in English, and that the title, author(s), edition, and ISBN numbers are identical to what is required for the course. If you end up buying the right book but wrong edition, you will probably find that you are answering all the wrong homework problems. Also make sure that if the book is supposed to come with any software, or is packaged by the school’s bookstore with other books or materials, that the seller (or reseller, if it is a used book) provides everything.
If you choose to buy textbooks from an online auction, be aware that auctions can be a lengthy process and there is no guaranty that you will have the winning bid when it’s all over. Regardless of what online bookstore you buy from, check the shipping costs. My daughter found one book very reasonably priced on eBay, but the seller in Singapore wanted to add $30 for shipping! As with any online auction, I always recommend that buyers check the rating of the seller and avoid overseas purchases.
Good luck with classes this year. Have fun shopping online and avoid the long lines and overpriced books in the school store!
