Ordering college textbooks online?

[luvflorida]

Another vote for chegg.com. My daughter has used chegg.com for the past few years. The prices are good and I like the fact that they send all the return shipping labels and you can reuse the same box the books arrived in.

 

[LuvtheMouse88]

I always use www.addall.com. It gives you a list of prices from all kinds of different websites. You can choose used and new books. I never had a problem with ordering through them.

 

[Terrie..]

Try Alibris.com. My daughter gets a lot of hers there for good prices.

 

[golfgal]

The best way to make sure you get the best prices on books is to tell your kid he has to pay for it himself, and arm him with a list of possible sites. Chances are, he might become a lot more interested in comparison shopping Then if you want to pay for his books (which I see nothing wrong with), you can reimburse him for what he ordered.
There was a used textbook store near my campus, unaffiliated with the school, that had great prices on books. He may want to see if a store like that exists near his school. Also, he should email professors and ask if the earlier edition of any books are acceptable.

DS is working 50 hours a week right now and asked me to look these up for him because I have more time to do that then he does. Not that it really matters but he is paying for his books and most of his schooling.

 

[charming23]

Another chegg.com supporter here. I heard about it on the disboards last spring and it ha saved me so much money. I got all four of my book lat semester for $157 instead of the $398 the bookstore wanted for used books.

They are fast and efficient and make sending the books back very easy.

 

[Geoff_M]

A word of caution about ordering textbooks on-line. Make sure you know the ISBN number of the book that you are looking for and only order it if it matches the e-commerce site's. Matching on author, title, and edition may not get you the right book as many major textbook publishers are offering customized versions of many of the their common books. The publisher gives the university department a list of possible chapters they can choose from for their Calculus or Chemistry classes, for example, and the university decides which ones they want that will match their curriculum. Our daughter's university heavily used "custom" textbooks for her freshman (er, excuse me "1st Year") and I didn't realize this until just before I pressed the "submit order" button on B&N's site when I got curious about something and double-checked.

 

[AristocatFan]

We just ordered DS's books from the university bookstore. A whole $310 I wanted to try other sites but could not find the ISBN numbers for the books. Plus one of his classes is an ebook. How would you handle finding that somewhere else?

 

[Geoff_M]

There's a good chance that if you cannot find the ISBN on-line at the common e-commerce sites, and it's not some odd-ball textbook, then it's a "custom" book. Publishers make it really easy to create these, and universities like them because they can tailor them to their classes... and as an added bonus it gives the campus bookstore a virtual corner on the market. Here' McGraw-Hill's site for "making your own" books: http://create.mcgraw-hill.com/createonline/index.html#

 

[PirateSnowmen]

I just used bookrenter.com for a summer class. I saved $88.93 by renting. They had a better price than chegg.com, so I'd definitely use them again. One thing to keep in mind when buying books is that most stores only buy back the book for no more than 45% of the price they will sell it at. That's the way it is around here, at least.

I've really found that shopping around is best. I've noticed that one textbook might be cheaper on one website, but another textbook might be cheaper on another. It's frustrating and can take quite a bit of time (depending on how dedicated you are to shopping around). I had a friend who bought all of his textbooks on eBay and saved about 60-75% total, so there are definitley many good deals out there (but they can be super hard to find).

 

[Christine]

I just checked Chegg. They didn't carry 3 of the of 5 books I need.

For the other two books, the price was excellent. $28.99 for the semester versus $50 used. The philosophy book was $19.99; however, someone on half.com is selling it for $20.00 so that might be the way to go.

My concern is the 30-day return. The 30 day time clock starts the day my order is confirmed. So if it gets confirmed tomorrow, my 30 days is up on August 9th. If DD has to change/drop a class then I guess I get stuck with the fee. I guess I can't complain about $28.00 too loudly!

 

[PlainJane]

Have you checked to see if the school has a book exchange run by the students? Some school's exchange programs offer buy and rent options.

I personally have always used a local textbook retailer that is heavily discounted next to my school bookstore, they also were very fair when I would sell back my books. This has always worked best for me because I often didn't purchase my books until after my first class, I had one too many first days where the teacher said we either didn't need the "required" text or that the text listed was wrong.

 

[loveadobie]

I have looked at Barnes and Nobel, Amazon and the school bookstore but are there any other good sites to buy or rent college textbooks that you have used? Thanks

Half.com is great for any books! Just be sure you look at the seller's ratings to ensure you're not buying from a poor seller. I can usually get books 80-90% off there!!!