The end of another semester and soon the beginning of a new one; another round of busting the bank for new or used textbooks, but what about your old ones?
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure here at Skyline and other colleges when you decide to sell your used textbooks online or at the local campus Bookstore.
The Skyline campus bookstore will buy back old textbooks for 50 percent of the original sale price, but only if they have a market price for it. For example, the Bookstore is not likely to buy any old editions of books or out of date technical manuals.
The appearance and condition of the book is also a factor, although the bookstore may still buy the book in a damaged state. The bookstore has no set policy on damaged used books, and it varies from person to person.
“A girl tried to sell back a book where her dog bit off half the cover, for example,” said Kevin Chak, Skyline’s bookstore textbook buyer.
While one person may not want a used book with half the cover missing, another person might not care if half the cover was missing; it’s all about the buyer’s perspective. The bookstore will buy back a book with say a small corner of the cover being damaged, but don’t count on getting any extra money.
According to Chak, in a situation like this, the bookstore may not buy the book back, fearing that in the near future the book will fall apart because of all the damages. To some people, used books may be more desired in terms of searching for books that have notes written inside of them. A few notes written away from the text in the book shouldn’t be much of a problem, but when you try and resell a book when entire sections of text are painted with highlighter and the paper is damaged, the bookstore may not buy back the book.
When asked if the bookstore would buy back all used books (with market value) the answer was yes even if they had more than enough copies that they expect to resell to students. When the bookstore has a surplus in books, they trade or sell to other college campus bookstores and companies. In any case, students putting books back in the system and letting them fall into the hands of other students looking for low-cost books is, according to Chak, a show of “students helping students.”
Online companies like http://www.textbookbuyer.com will buy used textbooks. If a student wanted to get ambitious in selling their textbook to the highest bidder, they have every right because it is their textbook. It is not guaranteed, however, that you will get more money compared to campus bookstores. Bookstore employee Andra Morgan said, “We can’t do much about the price, but we can sure give you service.”
By service Morgan is talking about convenience and saving more money in the long run.
“You probably won’t get much more than we are offering,” Morgan said.
When dealing with online book buyers, you have to deal with the possibility of using money orders or credit to receive your payment, then going thought the process of shipping textbooks and receiving payment.
Students may consider cutting out the middle man altogether by posting flyers around campus, selling textbooks to whomever happens to spot the flyer. This process gives the student more control over selling the textbook without involving middlemen, but it takes more time than to just walk to the campus bookstore.
With the Skyline Bookstore, students walk in with their books in hand and a short while later, walk out with cash. Students also know that the books being sold back are being put back into the hands of students that will need them just as the previous owner did.
The bookstore does not plan to stop at books-it also plans to buy back TI-83 math calculators in December. The store is also considering the idea of textbook rentals.
