Characteristics for
Online Textbook Prices

Online textbook prices at the big Internet marketplaces represent the real time supply and demand driven value for textbooks. The prices in the brick and mortar stores tend to stick to the traditional, and constantly inflating price structure. The marketplaces of Amazon and Half.com bring together the largest number of buyers and sellers and offer the best picture of a book's true market value.

Prices at these marketplaces will rise when demand increases during the start of the traditional semester at universities across the nation. (Late August and January) Prices will then wane as each semester ages. Prices will reach their bottom immediately at the end of a term as students bypassing the college bookstore buyback list their books for sale. (Early May and December) Through the summer months prices will ebb and flow on the low side as the light demand from summer school gently influences prices.

The typical listing at one of these online textbook marketplaces will show the books listed for sale by condition and then price. The textbooks listed as new will hold the highest values and the prices will descend as the condition worsens. Within each category you may find individual sellers with very few transactions or low feedback ratings. These sellers represent higher risk transactions and usually list their books for the cheapest prices.

The first seller with a high number of favorable feedbacks represents a lower risk transaction and probably has multiple copies listed for sale. This is the high volume seller who sets the true market value for a textbook. There’s likely to be several highly rated sellers clustered right behind this price as these high volume dedicated booksellers nip and tuck by the penny for top billing.

As listed prices rise beyond the market price you will find less motivated sellers waiting for the prices to spike up at the peak times. Beyond those prices you will find unmotivated sellers who have neglected their listing or even forgotten about it entirely.

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