RentScouter

Amazon has launched an app specifically focused on college textbooks and students today to complement their Kindle textbook rental store and their textbook buyback program which offers trade-in credit instead of cash for textbooks.  Amazon has been making a big push into the college student marketplace this year as we have chronicled in Amazon stories.  The new app allows college students to quickly check prices on textbooks or any Amazon item they might want to buy online including Kindle book rentals (though it has a very limited amount of titles).  It also allows collegiate students to find Amazon buyback prices for books and electronics, and also allows students students to list any items they want to sell online: textbooks, games, movies, etc.

Basically, the app has a barcode scanning feature that allows a student to scan the ISBN on a school book or a UPC code on a DVD or other item to check current prices on Amazon including apparel, food items, or really anything Amazon carries which is about everything these days.  Users can also add items to their Amazon “wish list” for someone (parents) to buy at a later time.  With Amazon’s College Student Program they are offering free two day shipping for up to six months to those that join up as the program is similar to Amazon Prime membership.

Amazon is also allowing students to check trade-in values on a variety of items: textbooks, video games, DVDs or electronics.  Amazon does provide free shipping like other buyback companies; however, they only offer Amazon gift cards not cash.  However, Amazon is normally offering a great deal more credit than cash, but always get a textbook buyback price comparison.  Amazon says it is currently buying back over one million college textbooks and accessories through it’s trade back program.  In summary, this is just another attempt by Amazon to lock up it’s user with “Amazon currency” instead of allowing a complete price comparison search when attempting to buy textbooks online whether used or renting textbooks as we provide you here at RentScouter.

Amazon's Kindle Textbok Rental Store

Amazon is entering the textbook rental landscape by launching their Kindle Rental program today.  Amazon’s textbook buyback credit program is doing very well with their high prices, but they are very late to the online textbook rental market dominated by players like BookRenter and Chegg.  However, never discount Amazon which is willing to lose money on items or in a new market to gain market share.  They have been heavily marketing to college students with their Amazon Student Savings Program which offers free two day shipping on the millions of textbooks available at Amazon.  Amazon is claiming to save college students up to 80% if you rent textbooks on the Kindle.

Nothing new with how much renting textbooks online for college can save students – so does Amazon offer anything new versus the established online book rental companies or other electronic textbook companies like Kno?  The program apparently allows college students rent books from 30 to 360 days, which is nothing new, and that thousands of textbook titles are immediately available from top higher education publishers like Elsevier, Taylor&Francis, and John Wiley & Sons – again nothing new.  Amazon is allowing students to store highlighted content and book notes in the Amazon cloud, even after the textbook rental period has expired which is a new twist, but how useful?  Kindle textbooks are supposedly in a format that can be read on a variety of mobile platform via Amazon’s Kindle reading apps.

Well, let’s see Amazon:

1) College students can control their online book rental time period – nothing new

2) Textbook rentals can save students up to 80% versus new textbooks – nothing new

3) Electronic textbooks can be viewed and read on a variety of devices – nothing new

4) Offering thousands of books for rent online – nothing new

5) Students can save notes and highlighted content in the Amazon cloud – new, but useful?

The RentScouter team is not amazed by the Kindle Textbook Rental Program, but considering Amazon’s aggressive pricing tactics this could result in great textbook rental prices for college students.

How does Amazon’s textbook rental program compare to some of the others out there:

NOOKStudy – You get a free seven day trial period before you have to purchase or rent your school book for 180 days.  This is a more comprehensive offering versus Kindle Book rentals as it offers students a hub to digitize their schedule, store notes, homework, or class schedule information.  However, it isn’t currently available on mobile platforms.

Kno – Textbooks on the iPad, what else needs to be said?  Well, it is a good start, but we have reported that students still prefer printed textbooks almost 9 to 1.  However, as we covered Kno has some unique features in their quest for offering cheap textbooks online including social sharing – “WTF”.  Perhaps a great program, but no option for Window OS users at this time.

Inkling – The app is free and you can rent college books by chapter online instead of having to buy the entire textbook.  Great concept, but again limited to the iPad and their library has less than 1,000 book titles currently – we hope it grows.

Chegg’s eBooks – What does one of the leader’s in traditional college textbook rentals offer?  An online only service with a good selection of school book titles, but limited to PC users only.

Your best bet is probably still a textbook rental, but electronic texbook options are growing rapidly and offer promise in the coming years.

South Korea’s Education Ministry has announced it wants all school age level educational materials to be delivered in a digitized format by 2015.  It hopes that by 2014 all elementary level materials will be read on a variety of computers, smart phones, and tablets.  No specific equipment choices have been made, but the Ministry did announce it will spend up to 2.4 billion buying the necessary tablets, software, and digitizing the necessary school curriculum.

Some Korean schools already are using electronic textbooks via notebook computers and tablets.  However, it is very unlikely that the South Korean government would pick the Apple iPad as its tablet of choice.  It is much more likely to pick tablets manufactured by South Korean electronics manufacturing company, Samsung.  This could be a very nice windfall for Samsung and its Galaxy tablet or some variant.

Why would the Galaxy need modification?  The folks who brought us the Kno Tablet did lots of research on students that buy textbooks online or hope to rent textbooks online, whether digital or otherwise, instead of purchasing a printed textbook.

What a student needs, according to Kno’s research, is something that faithfully reproduces a full-size textbook, without compromise.  In contrast, the attempt to cram a textbook onto a smaller screen is a primary reason that previous trials with replacing textbooks with tablets and e-readers such as the Kindle DX have been abject failures.

This move will be watched by governments and manufacturers worldwide as everyone is wondering about the future of electronic textbooks.  It also awakens the argument about whether students learn better from printed or digital textbooks.  Another reason digital textbooks have not taken off in the United States is the cost when compared to buying a cheap used textbook online or renting college textbooks online.  The initial cost is still much higher, but currently their is no cash sell back value for electronic textbooks, nor can they be transferred.  Now that Kno has given up on hardware manufacture and is now focused on a software solution for cheap textbooks and trying the novel “Words to Friends” approach we detailed about a month ago.