q: purchase texbooks online?

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SkinnyJoe

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I noticed on a very popular online bookseller's site that a certain textbook costs 100 bucks. Then, I clicked on a link provided which lists other sellers, ranked by price. One is as low as 38 bucks, new. 99% seller rating. 4 bucks for shipping. Several others also a lot lower than 100 bucks. Hmm.


Sounds too good to be true. Any catch, scam, or trick involved?


Thanks.
 
Nope that is pretty typical. For example on half.com, which is owned by eBay, you will find many sellers pawning textbooks for low cost. Amazon marketplace has the same situation. They are sorted by seller described condition and usually the best deals are used. When I was in college I relied heavily on these sites because bookstore prices are insane. Just make sure you are looking at the correct edition.
 
I have bought a couple of textbooks through the site I think you are referencing. It's legit. Note that you may be looking at an edition that is behind the current one (i.e., the teacher/professor is on version 8 and the seller has version 7.)
 
+1 to what lava_lamp commented... additionally you may not get any DVD/software ancillary goodies with your text...I was on our county's science textbook adoption committee a couple of times, and the amount of additional reference materials included with each successive edition was notable, as was the "readability" of the text...at the high school level the newer texts have a much better format for the visual learners... more color pictures, and margin comments
 
so long as the isbn number matches it is the same textbook. half dot com works great for buying and selling textbooks.
 
Thanks for the replies. I noticed on one of the websites recommended the words "media mail". Doesn't that take weeks?
 
Check Amazon and Amazon Marketplace. http://www.addall.com/ will search everywhere else for you. http://used.addall.com/ will search everywhere for out of print titles or editions.

In my experience, Media Mail can be slow, depending on where you live and where the seller ships from. Not an expert, I quit the PO in 1968 :D
 
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Amazon is pretty good at their regular new prices also. I'm looking at a book that costs 265, and on amazon it is 180 new. I used college book renter for the first time this past semester and have mixed thoughts on it. I think their prices are fairly good but their service is horrible. They take forever to ship, and my books go to me 3 days before the semester started even though I ordered with more than 2 weeks prior. When I recieved the books, I realized that they sent me a wrong book, not even close to the title. I called them and told them and said I needed the book in 4 days and they said no problem, going out today. They called the day it was supposed to arrive and said they are out of stock and will refund me the money. Well it left me no time to find a replacement online and forced me to buy it from the bookstore at full cost :mad:
 
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