School is starting, and the only thing between a flush bank
account and an empty one this semester is the stack of textbooks
that your professors insist you need.
You can blow off the books completely and hope to glean the
information by osmosis, stand in line at the campus bookstore and
pay full price while muttering about highway robbery, or go
online.
That last option can save hundreds of dollars and the headache of
finding a retailer with the book in stock.
Several online retailers carry textbooks. We did some comparison
shopping for a common freshman textbook, Calculus: Early
Transcendentals by James Stewart, with a list price of $152.95,
to show what's available on the Internet.
1. Search engines like Bestbookbuys.com or
Bigwords.com link viewers with several sites that sell textbooks,
such as Amazon.com and ecampus.com. You can search by title, author,
subject or ISBN (the 10-digit number near the bar code).
Prices for the calculus book ranged from $83.82 for a used one to
$185.12 for a new one. The price includes shipping.
Both sites also sell international versions of books, which are
often cheaper but may have different text or graphics. Check with
the retailer to be sure you're getting exactly what you want. An
international version was available for $58.31.
2. eBay, the marketplace for all things from action
figures to luxury cars, also sells textbooks. The downsides are the
small selection and the time factor. You might find what you want
but only after an auction has ended.
The Stewart book was listed for $65 plus $9.65 for shipping. An
international version was available for $9.69 plus $18 for
shipping.
Check out other marketplaces such as Craigslist.org. There
were several calculus books by James Stewart on the site, but not
the version we wanted.
3. If you don't feel like comparison shopping, check out
your school's online campus bookstore. A number of schools
ask for your class schedule and automatically order the books you
need. You can have the books shipped to you or held at the
bookstore.
Don't forget, when the semester is over you can sell the
textbooks back to the online companies for cash or credit toward
another purchase.
