Saturday, April 11, 2009

Why You Need to Buy Used College Textbooks

By Greg Shuey

More and more college students are turning their sights on used college textbooks to get on with their education at a lesser cost. New college textbooks have price tags so high-the average brand new book costs between $50 to $100 or more-it has become a burden for most students.

With the economy in its current state, one can't afford to shell out that much money for a book. Yes, education is important and must be the top priority but when you can't pay your rent and buy food, would you still want to spend hundreds of dollars for a single college textbook?

Fortunately, students have found a way to fix this problem. With the help of the Internet, they can now purchase cheaper college textbooks from online bookstores. Such bookstores are found to offer textbooks at a lower price because they do not have overhead costs. But there is something way better. Scour the Internet for bookstores that sell used college textbooks. These for sure costs less than the new books sold at online bookstores.

These textbooks are previously owned by students like you so there's a high probability that these people know how hard it is to afford books and want to help out fellow students. The plus side to this is that they are inexpensive.

Sure there is the concern of getting something that has a torn or missing page but you have to know that it all boils down to you. Check the book first if you're buying it directly from a bookstore. If it's sold online, chances are used college textbooks are in good conditions because the sites selling them wouldn't want to have a bad rep of selling damaged goods, right?

Also, used college textbooks, especially those bought from people you know, can have scribbled notes in the upper part of the pages or in the text body itself which can help you a lot. And since you've bought them at a lesser price, you'd still have some money left to buy other books or use it to pay for rent, food, clothes, etc.

Still not convinced? For those who like to conform to what's in, check out these stats:

Overall sales were over $2.2 billion (over $600 million of that online)

Overall sales grew 11% from 2003 to 2004 (4.6% offline, 33% online)

111 million used books were sold, making up 8% of all books sold (expected to grow to 9% by the end of the decade)

Used textbook sales were $1.6 billion, sold mostly offline (an 8.5% increase over 2003)

Used textbooks cost an average of $42.31

Used textbook sales account for 30% of the value of all textbook sales

Just think about this: you can save a lot of money when you buy used college textbooks. You'll learn the same thing, even more, and you don't even have to empty out your pockets up to the last penny.

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