Buying College Textbooks on the Internet
Every college student knows what a burden it is to buy textbooks for clases. Many of the new textbooks being sold by college bookstores are ridicuously priced. I have bought textbooks that have cost upwards of $100. That is just for one textbook. I usually have about 5 classes semester so that means that means that I need to buy at least five textbooks. That is a lot of money to be spending on textbooks. Many students have to resort to buying used books because they are sometimes much cheaper than buying a new textbook. Recently I have discovered that there are many places on the Internet where you can find textbooks much cheaper than you would in any bookstore.
One of the best places to buy textbooks from would be from www.Half.com. They have a whole section of the site dedicated just to college textbooks. The setup of the site makes it very easy to find the exact textbook that you are looking for. It allows you to search for a textbook by its ISBN. An ISBN is a 10 digit number printed above the bar code. It is usually printed on the back cover or on the title page. Class syllabuses often contain the ISBN along with the textbook title and the author. Even if you don’t know the ISBN you can still easily find the textbook you are looking for as long as you know the title or the author. Once you find the book you are looking for, the site will bring up a a list of sellers and the price they are selling the book for. There also comments on the conditions of books indicating whether there are any creases or tears. I bought one of my history textbooks off Half.com for $10.00. The list price of the book was $81.16. So I saved $68.67 because I also had to pay $2.49 for shipping so the total was $12.49. That beats paying $81.16 for the same book.
.Amazon.com has a similar setup. You can’t search for books by the ISBN at www.Amazon.com. You can only search by the title and author. When you find the book you can either buy it for the list price or you can buy it used. If you buy it used you get brought to a new page where it lists all the sellers and the prices for the book. It also comments about the conditions of the book just like Half.com. The shipping prices are comparable to Half.com. The prices are about the same between Amazon and Half.
Another website that sells textbooks is www.efollet.com. Efollet allows you to buy directly from your college’s bookstore. It first prompts you choose your state and then your school. Then you choose your campus and the term. It will then allow you find your exact class by it’s section number and display the books you need. Since it is from the college bookstore the prices are not exactly as low as the other two sites. I was looking for an accounting book on there and the price for a new one was $157.00. The used price was $118.00. Efollet doesn’t give you that much of a break on prices. The only time I would reccomend using it is if you couldn’t find the right textbook on either Amazon or Half.
There are many other options besides using a college bookstore to buy textbooks. More college students everyday are discovering the advantage of the buying used textbooks over the Web. However you must be cautious when buying over the Internet. You must make sure that book you are buying is the correct edition needed for the class. Publishers put out new editions every so often to make more money and make people new books. Sometimes one editon could be much different than the past edition and it won’t be useful to you for your class. Also make sure you buy from a legit seller. Sometimes people go on these sites and sell books that are not what they say it is. Most sellers are legit but there are always a few who are not. Half.com and Amazon.com make it easier though by having user ratings for sellers. People who buy from the sellers rate their service. People who are rating highly are the best ones to buy from. Good luck finding cheap books and enjoy your next semester.
