Selling Textbooks Before
Your Peers Increases Your Odds

It’s finals week and you've decided you're not selling textbooks back until you've finished your last final. Your professor has told you that they’ve re-adopted the textbook and turned in the order to the bookstore. You arrive at the bookstore knowing the order is in and you’re expecting to be offered half back for your book. The clerk offers you much less. You explain that the professor has re-adopted the book, and you know your buddy has just sold his for half back, so you should be offered the same price. The clerk explains that they’ve already bought all they need for the following semester and that your book is being sold to a wholesaler for the lower price. What happened?

Unfortunately, buyback week at the bookstore pits you against your peers in a game of: “The early bird gets the worm.” College bookstores will only buy a limited number of re-adopted books back for half price. Aside from padding their profits there are a couple of legitimate reasons the bookstores do this:

• Class sizes decrease during the spring semester as some students drop out; and a greater number of students refuse to buy books for second semester classes decreasing the demand.

• During the spring buyback, summer school classes are also much smaller and require less on-hand inventory.

• The bookstores are also paying half back during the spring buy for fall classes, but they’ll limit the amount of books they buy back for half to mitigate their risk.

What risks are the bookstores attempting to mitigate? Before the start of the next term instructors sometimes get re-assigned and the new professor often decides to use a different book. This ends up hurting the college bookstore as they’re forced to take a loss on the books they've invested half back in. The bookstores will also attempt to cover any internal losses due to human error throughout the buyback process. Limiting the overall investment to students for re-adopted books allows the bookstore to cover for these mistakes and unexpected changes.

What this boils down to for you is: If you prefer the easy cash transaction from selling textbooks back to the college bookstore, you need to plan to make a trip to the bookstore as soon as you’re through studying from each textbook. The longer you wait, the more you decrease the odds of being offered half back.

Strategize

First find out exactly when the bookstores serving your campus are offering their end of semester buyback. Most bookstores will offer to buy your books anytime for the wholesale price. You want to make sure you're selling textbooks during the alloted time that the bookstore is offering half back, or at least better than wholesale.

Once you know you're within the designated buyback window, a good strategy to follow is to stop at the buyback location of your choice on the way to your final exam. This way you’re likely to be selling textbooks ahead of everyone in your class. If your exam is scheduled at the end of the week, and most other sections of the course are scheduled earlier, your odds of being offered half back will be slim. If you’re faced with this dilemma, you could consider selling the book immediately and borrowing the text or studying from the library reserve copy before your exam.

Some professors will re-adopt a book changing editions for one more semester of use, particularly during the spring and summer terms. If you know your book has a new edition coming out, consider attempting to sell it right away at the start of buy back. College bookstores will severely limit the amount of old editions that they’ll pay half for, and may not pay half at all.

Ultimately bookstores will pay more for books early during the buyback week in an attempt to create a buzz. They want students talking about how much they got after selling textbooks back to encourage others to follow. Plan to take advantage of this knowledge, and also consider that lines during buyback tend to be shorter in the mornings; at your next textbook buyback be the "Early Bird" and go for the worm!

Leave selling textbooks and return to Buyback





Free All-About-Textbooks-Advisor service

Are you becoming overwhelmed by all the information being offered here? There's no need to stress yourself trying to retain it all. Allow me to send you the exact instructions at the precise times you need them.
(based on a traditional school year calendar)

For example: You'll get a reminder when you should begin researching next semesters books, links to the tools to do your research, when and how to receive the most money at buy back etc. . . Sign up here: