Selling Used Textbooks
December 27, 2008
Before the beginning of fall semester, I wrote about the great college textbook racket and ways to avoid buying expensive textbooks. Unfortunately, there are inevitable cases when you just can't avoid buying some textbooks, so you bite the bullet and pick them up anyway. At the end of the semester a lot of students sell their textbooks back to the campus bookstore. A lot of these bookstores are operated by corporations that turn around and resell used textbooks at big profits. Selling to the campus bookstore may be convenient, but it does a major disservice to other well-meaning students.
I've never sold textbooks to a campus bookstore, and I've only purchased textbooks from one of these places my first semester in college (when I truly didn't know any better). If you don't want to keep a textbook for your collection, no matter the condition, edition, or price that others are asking, everyone (except the campus bookstore) is better off if you put your books up for sale on a website like half.com or Amazon Marketplace. Yes, it does require you to go through the listing process, pack your books in a box or envelope, buy postage and drop them off at the Post Office, but it's a small commitment to keep an important market functioning. Even if you don't stand to make much (or any) money on your books, think of selling them as a service to students who can least afford to buy them. Certainly you would appreciate being able to pick up textbooks for next to nothing from individuals who have little use for them anyways. Since most of the books I buy used are old editions or in less-than-perfect quality, the resale value isn't particularly high - but I don't have a problem putting a book up for sale for one or two bucks to help out someone else who might need the book and doesn't mind the imperfection.
Case-in-point: my intermediate macroeconomics class used Mankiw's Macroeconomics textbook. The newest edition lists for $167.45; Amazon is selling it new for $117.47; the lowest asking price on half.com is $40.95. At the end of the semester, my school's bookstore was buying this book from students for $20 a piece; the bookstore will probably turn around and sell the used copies for $60-$75 at the beginning of spring semester. In this case, it obviously seems to be in the best interest of both the buyer and the seller to engage in the transaction directly. And even if, as the buyer, you ask for a price well below the current asking price (say, $20 or $25), you're still doing a huge favor to the next owner of the book who can save a nice chunk of change.
I'll be listing all of my now unwanted textbooks online this weekend. I hope that everyone else sees the benefit of listing theirs too.
I've never sold textbooks to a campus bookstore, and I've only purchased textbooks from one of these places my first semester in college (when I truly didn't know any better). If you don't want to keep a textbook for your collection, no matter the condition, edition, or price that others are asking, everyone (except the campus bookstore) is better off if you put your books up for sale on a website like half.com or Amazon Marketplace. Yes, it does require you to go through the listing process, pack your books in a box or envelope, buy postage and drop them off at the Post Office, but it's a small commitment to keep an important market functioning. Even if you don't stand to make much (or any) money on your books, think of selling them as a service to students who can least afford to buy them. Certainly you would appreciate being able to pick up textbooks for next to nothing from individuals who have little use for them anyways. Since most of the books I buy used are old editions or in less-than-perfect quality, the resale value isn't particularly high - but I don't have a problem putting a book up for sale for one or two bucks to help out someone else who might need the book and doesn't mind the imperfection.
Case-in-point: my intermediate macroeconomics class used Mankiw's Macroeconomics textbook. The newest edition lists for $167.45; Amazon is selling it new for $117.47; the lowest asking price on half.com is $40.95. At the end of the semester, my school's bookstore was buying this book from students for $20 a piece; the bookstore will probably turn around and sell the used copies for $60-$75 at the beginning of spring semester. In this case, it obviously seems to be in the best interest of both the buyer and the seller to engage in the transaction directly. And even if, as the buyer, you ask for a price well below the current asking price (say, $20 or $25), you're still doing a huge favor to the next owner of the book who can save a nice chunk of change.
I'll be listing all of my now unwanted textbooks online this weekend. I hope that everyone else sees the benefit of listing theirs too.
Exactly. And you will both win (engage in a Pareto efficient exchange) if you charge the student between $20 and $60 for the textbook using any medium other than the campus bookstore (aka the source of all evil). Myself an economics major, I very much appreciate the analysis :-).
I've also sold a couple of textbooks through Facebook Marketplace. The advantage is that you can sell to students at your university, so you do not even have to mail the textbook. Just arrange for a quick 5-minute meeting.
Irina, thanks for the input. Facebook marketplace seems like it could potentially be very useful. From my experience, however, it doesn't tend to be particularly popular on every campus; and on mine, there is rarely, if ever, anything listed.
That is just the reason why I created www.StudentBookTrades.com. Students can Trade, Buy, and Sell College Books at their home campus or nationwide. The website service automatically matches students together if they need each others textbook as well. This will save lots of money, especially when finding someone to trade textbooks with (well over 95%).
Have you ever tried using http://www.bigwords.com before? I've been using them since my sophomore year and i have never gone back to the bookstore my self!