Buying textbooks online

b_r_um
Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:21:03 +0000

Amazon is the way to go! (especially Amazon Marketplace)
I got all of my books within a week of ordering them with regular shipping. If you use Amazon Marketplace, you can see where the book will ship from and pick a seller that lives closer to you.
My college’s bookstore buys back a certain number of every textbook, regardless of whether you bought it there or not. I have been able to resell all of my books as long as I did not wait until the end of finals week. Some other bookstores want to see your receipt before they buy back your book, so you could not resell a cheap book from Amazon.
I have not run into that problem so far because I never bought a book before the first day of a class for two reasons: to find out whether a textbook is required or supplemental (I usually don’t buy the supplemental ones) and because I am never quite sure which classes I will be taking before the beginning of the semester. The first week of classes at my college is called “shopping week” because we can attend as many classes as we would like, and we don’t have to commit to any of them until the beginning of the second week.


It has never been a problem that I did not have the textbooks at the beginning of the semester. Most professors are aware of shopping week and don’t expect students to have the textbook early in the semester. If I have to use a textbook before my shipment arrives, I use Amazon’s “search inside” function to get temporary access to the pages that I need.