Sometimes the campus bookstore just isn't the most cost-effective place to sell back your college textbooks. Before you accept their offer, check out what your book is worth online.
Before you race to the bookstore to cash in your books, consider this: most schools give anywhere from 25%-50% of what you originally paid for your book. In fact, some books that set you back more than $150 just months ago may only fetch an offer of $1. How can you avoid accepting low ball offers like these from the bookstore? Check out what your books are worth online. You may be able to make a few more bucks than you would at a bookstore on campus. Plus, there lots of places online that are still buying books that your campus bookstore won't buy back. On March 28th, RA Magazine tested a few of the biggest book buyback websites to find out who was offering the most cash for our 3 hardcover study samples (all in good condition). All of the websites we tested let you search for the books you're selling by the title, author and ISBN number.
Here's where we tested them:
The proposed buy back offer:
Cashing in
Clearly, it pays to shop around. The difference between the first place winner and last place finisher was $56.80, which isn't a small chunk of change. eCampus.com was the number one place to sell back our three sample books, beating runner up Bookbyte.com by $6.80. Third place went to Textbooksrus.com, offering $17.62 less than our second place finisher. Which finding surprised us the most? We thought huge book retailer Amazon.com would have placed higher than 5th. Their book buyback program offers payment only in the form of credit to your Amazon.com account. We were also surprised to find that Bookbyte.com and Collegebookrenter.com were not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which is a very important trust factor when dealing with an online company. Before using any one of these sites, we advise you to make sure you read through the company user agreement. Your campus bookstore still may be the leader in buyback dollars, but it won't hurt your wallet to see who the other high bidders are.
Share the wealth!
Download the highlights from this article to share with your residents.
Sometimes the campus bookstore just isn't the most cost-effective place to sell back your college textbooks. Before you accept their offer, check out what your book is worth online.
Before you race to the bookstore to cash in your books, consider this: most schools give anywhere from 25%-50% of what you originally paid for your book. In fact, some books that set you back more than $150 just months ago may only fetch an offer of $1. How can you avoid accepting low ball offers like these from the bookstore? Check out what your books are worth online. You may be able to make a few more bucks than you would at a bookstore on campus. Plus, there lots of places online that are still buying books that your campus bookstore won't buy back. On March 28th, RA Magazine tested a few of the biggest book buyback websites to find out who was offering the most cash for our 3 hardcover study samples (all in good condition). All of the websites we tested let you search for the books you're selling by the title, author and ISBN number.
Here's where we tested them:
The proposed buy back offer:
Cashing in
Clearly, it pays to shop around. The difference between the first place winner and last place finisher was $56.80, which isn't a small chunk of change. eCampus.com was the number one place to sell back our three sample books, beating runner up Bookbyte.com by $6.80. Third place went to Textbooksrus.com, offering $17.62 less than our second place finisher. Which finding surprised us the most? We thought huge book retailer Amazon.com would have placed higher than 5th. Their book buyback program offers payment only in the form of credit to your Amazon.com account. We were also surprised to find that Bookbyte.com and Collegebookrenter.com were not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which is a very important trust factor when dealing with an online company. Before using any one of these sites, we advise you to make sure you read through the company user agreement. Your campus bookstore still may be the leader in buyback dollars, but it won't hurt your wallet to see who the other high bidders are.
Share the wealth!
Download the highlights from this article to share with your residents.