Students shopping for the best deals on textbooks prices from local providers consider price, convenience and payment plans to save cash during hard economic times, local providers said.
Local bookstores compete to gain students’ business
As students return to school, they have several choices when it comes to buying textbooks.
The O’Colly compared textbook prices from the Student Union Bookstore, Cowboy Book and Book Trader. Based on the titles compared, the Student Union Bookstore and Cowboy Book are usually be close, and Book Trader typically has slightly lower prices.
Jeff Nett, owner of Book Trader, said his store is able to keep prices low because it is privately owned and therefore the overhead cost, or the ongoing expense of operating the store, is lower than that of the other two stores.
The Nebraska Book Company owns Cowboy Book, and OSU owns the Student Union Bookstore.
Although some of the price tags at Cowboy Book might be higher, the store guarantees students the lowest prices, General Manager Devon Toland said.
“We want to make sure we’ve got the cheapest prices around,” Toland said. “But because there’s only one or two of us checking prices, it’s hard to do.
“We guarantee that no matter what the price is around town, we’ll match any price in town.”
Because there is little time between the fall and spring semesters, Toland said employees are unable to check prices on all books, and that is why the guarantee is in place.
No proof is required if the lower price is at Book Trader because the price can be verified online, Toland said.
But because the Student Union Bookstore does not have a Web site, students seeking a price match must bring in a receipt to verify the lower price.
Nett and Toland said the Student Union Bookstore gets most of the business.
“The union does more business than we do even though we’re cheaper and it’s mainly because they’ve got the Bursar account which gives them an unfair competitive advantage,” Nett said.
Starla Clawson, the book department manager at the Student Union Bookstore, said she thinks they get the most business because their store is the most convenient for students.
“We also have a larger supply of used books,” Clawson said.
Charging books to their Bursar makes it easier for students to just bill their parents, Toland said.
Because a lot of students don’t pay for their own books, they don’t shop around for the best deals, he said.
“Economic times are hard,” Toland said. “People need to shop around. We make sure to keep the lowest prices to help out as much as we can.”
People who shop early notice the cheaper prices at Book Trader, Nett said.
“We feel that we’re the most convenient and we keep the lowest prices and we feel like we’re the place to buy the books,” Nett said. “We want students to give us a try.”
Clawson said the Student Union Bookstore has to order more books than the other stores, which results in higher prices.
“Some prices may be slightly higher because we have had to purchase books from publishers,” Clawson said. “For example, when purchasing books for a class of 1,200 we may only be able to supply 600 used books.”
The rest of the books are purchased from the publisher, which can drive prices up, she said.
The only way to save more money is to have more used books, Clawson said.
“The only real way to do that is to encourage faculty to continue using the books they are currently using,” she said. “That will put more used books on the shelves for the next semesters’ students.”
Nett and Toland said the Student Union Bookstore gets most of the business.
“The Union does more business than we do even though we’re cheaper, and it’s mainly because they’ve got the Bursar account, which gives them an unfair competitive advantage,” Nett said.
Starla Clawson, the book department manager at the Student Union Bookstore, said she thinks they get the most business because their store is the most convenient for students.
“We also have a larger supply of used books,” Clawson said.
Charging books to their Bursar makes it easier for students to just bill their parents, Toland said.
Because a lot of students don’t pay for their own books, they don’t shop around for the best deals, he said.
“Economic times are hard,” Toland said. “People need to shop around. We make sure to keep the lowest prices to help out as much as we can.”
People who shop early notice the cheaper prices at Book Trader, Nett said.
“We feel that we’re the most convenient and we keep the lowest prices, and we feel like we’re the place to buy the books,” Nett said. “We want students to give us a try.”
Clawson said the Student Union Bookstore has to order more books than the other stores, which results in higher prices.
“Some prices may be slightly higher because we have had to purchase books from publishers,” Clawson said. “For example, when purchasing books for a class of 1,200, we may only be able to supply 600 used books.”
The rest of the books are purchased from the publisher, which can drive prices up, she said.
The only way to save more money is to have more used books, Clawson said.
“The only real way to do that is to encourage faculty to continue using the books they are currently using,” she said. “That will put more used books on the shelves for the next semesters’ students.”
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What about buying books online?
I would sympathize with Mr. Nett’s accusations of an “unfair competitive advantage” if it weren’t for the fact that his business (as well as Cowboy Book) sent unauthorized spam to my OSU email address despite the fact that I have never done business with Hall of Fame Book Trader. That pretty much means that he won’t ever see me as a customer.
And from my observations prices are more or less the same among all 3 bookstores…some books sell for more off campus, and some sell for less. Sometimes the Union has great prices on books….I purchased a used copy of a text for my Statistics course for $18.00 at the Union bookstore. I checked and Cowboy Book as well as Hall of Fame wanted more than $100 for it. Even online I could not find the book for less than $60. (Yes, same book, same edition, everything!) Other times, the Union can be a little more expensive. Plus, when you shop at the Union, the proceeds from your purchase go to support the Union’s operations, as opposed to a store that is either part of a huge non-local textbook chain (in the case of Cowboy Book) or a store that uses unauthorized spam to promote its business.
Plus I don’t understand how exactly Cowboy Book intends to make its “price match” policy work with the Union bookstore. If you need to bring in a receipt to get the pricematch then that means you need to buy another copy of the book (which is quite a demand when you’re talking about poor college students here). How do they expect that to be done when the Union store’s return policy does not allow returns on textbooks unless you drop a class?
My advice: shop around and don’t trust anyone’s claim that they have the lowest prices on textbooks because they very easily could not.
I all ways try to find my books online with the help of http://www.bigwords.com , they all ways seem to find me the cheapest textbooks around when ever I search for them using their site. The reason I think they’re the best is that they compare many items at once, and calculate the best combination of stores to buy at, including coupons and shipping. They also let you include or exclude international editions, and even renting is an option through them. They let you choose the ship time and then calculate the lowest price using the right shipping type at every store. Its an amazing search engine for textbooks for sure!