Last semester I purchased 4 books from the bookstore at the University of Utah and on Amazon.com. The books cost me more than 400 dollars to buy. It was incredible to see the prices for the books that were not even a new edition. I was buying used books for over 100 dollars. I came to the conclusion that if I bought the books used for over 100 dollars that I would be able to salvage some of that expense in the selling back process.
I try to buy my books for college almost exclusively from the internet, but there are some cases where you must buy "specialized" books from the university. I hate the specialized books that are made uniquely for a single university, but that is beside my point.
In the past I have made a net profit from selling my books back to the book store at a university, or at a third party kind of book buy-back store. This was not the case last semester. I went to sell back my 4 books that were still in nearly pristine condition. I was offered an astonishingly low amount for the books.
The money maker was going to sell for about 20 dollars. The other 3 combined for about 15 dollars. I was devastated by the loss from my investment. I declined the terms of the sale and decided that I would venture to the very same place that I have grown to love over the years, Amazon.com.
I posted my money maker online. There was a considerable amount of time that was used on signing up for the ability to use the website among other things. I had to verify that I was indeed the person I claimed to be. I had to offer a credit card number. As you can see there was a considerable cost that was included with this process.
The book sold today for 30 dollars. That $30 has a percentage taken from it from amazon.com so that they make money. I was aware of that percentage when I signed up to sell my book. I chose to do what I did.
Now we can get to my hate. I find it incredible that we have such a system that it is impossible to expect to resale your books from college for anywhere close to 50 percent of what you buy them for. I don't like to buy text books.
Although I made more money on the book than I would have without Amazon.com it is unlikely that I will use that service again soon. If anyone is interested in owning some text books let me know. One is about sports economics, one is statistics, and one is about the banking system and money. I will give them away to a good home.
Signed,
Hater
9 comments:
Unfortunately, I don't have time to read the books I'm required to read for my classes right now. If I had time I wanted to use reading more text books, I'd consider taking the one about money and banking.
Have you ever looked into renting textbooks. I don't know anything about it. I'm just trying to help.
That first sentence was a question.
I think being in the business of writing college books is what we should all be in. You write one book, then revise it just a little each year so the previous year's book will be considered obsolete. It really is a rip off.
I probably want to read the book on sports economics. Sounds riveting.
I am also a hater of the college book buying business.
I sold my last-semester books on t-bay this year and made about 80 dollars per book. The amount amazon takes per transaction is minimal, and you could have listed it higher and held out for longer if you really wanted more than 30 bucks. I had a book on amazon for 2 years once, and just when I started thinking i should take it down or lower the price, some indian guy from new jersey bought it for like 95 bucks.. I also am a fan of buying online and selling to the bookstore, but local classifieds(i'm sure uofu has one) and amazon are your best bets if the school is not offering much for them.
Maybe you should sell your real "money maker" services online if you are looking to make money. You will never win with selling text books! It sucks!
I rented a book online from chegg.com for 30$ that was normally going to cost me over a hundred to buy at the bookstore. I think you should consider that next semester, I would have done it with all of my books, but I didn't know about it until I had already gotten most of mine. Good luck !
Oh yeah, and the shipping was excellent too, I recieved it the next day. You just keep the box, so you can send it back when you are done with it.
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