RentScouter

What are the advantages of College Textbooks For Rent?

Most people get a college education with the hope of landing a good stable job after graduating. Most, if not all, of us would want a better future for ourselves. This is why we try our best to get a college education. But, whether we like it or not, college is expensive. We have to pay for the tuition fees, the rent, food and most importantly, books. Books are also getting more expensive by the year. This is why students have resorted to other options that can help them save money. One of these options is to find college textbooks for rent.

But, buying textbooks – especially new ones – is quite pricey. If you have tried going to bookstores, you’ll see how much book prices have increased. Somehow, buying new ones is also not that practical especially if you are trying to save some bucks. You might only be using the textbook for a semester. It’s a total waste of money for some students. This is why renting textbooks is becoming common with suppliers like Chegg, CampusBookRentals, and BookRenter.

You can actually find a lot of companies that supply textbooks for rent. You can try to go over the internet and look them up. There are also some book shops near the school that rent textbooks. Just be sure to look around and look for a shop that offers the best value.

One of the main advantages of renting textbooks is that you do not have any problem when it comes to disposing of your books after graduating or the end of the semester – simply ship them back for free. Imagine spending hundreds of dollars your school books and not being able to use them after college. You can either try to sell back textbooks for cash or recycle them which is environmentally responsible, but kind of a hassle since you are pretty much throwing money away. If you find textbooks for rent, you just have to return the books and you’ve got no piles whatsoever.

Secondly, when you rent textbooks, you can save 50 – 75 percent of the total amount that you pay when purchasing new books. This is a good option if you are trying to cut back on expenses. There are some college students who just can’t afford buying books. Renting textbooks can be an inexpensive alternative. Instead of spending money on buying school books, you can just use the money to pay for other expenses like food, rent, or a crazy summer vacation trip.

When you are renting books online, you will save yourself from scavenging in school bookstores. You can have the books shipped right to your doorstep. It will be very convenient for you. There are also some companies that allow you to highlight in the rented books. This can be good to students who need to highlight keywords when studying. If you are buying a new school book and you want to sell it, some stores do not accept highlighted textbooks. So, when you rent, at least you can do what you want to do. Word of warning though – make sure to check the policies of the company you rent from. If they do not allow this, you could be charged or worse yet, not be able to return the book!

Renting college textbooks is really advantageous especially to students who are trying to save up their money. If you are looking for college textbooks for rent, just make sure that you read up the policies of the companies. There are some who are give penalties to those people who return the books late or get the books damaged. Ensure that you read the fine print before you rent textbooks for college.

Rentscouter.com can help you with this process, as you can research the best companies with college textbooks for rent.

This video explains our book conditions, what to anticipate when receiving a Chegg textbook rental, how to return a Chegg order and some frequently asked questions about textbook rentals with Chegg.

Here is a fan video about renting textbooks with Chegg.

Perhaps a little creepy, but hey, Chegg saves some college students hundreds of dollars each semester when they rent textbooks instead of buying books online or at the college bookstore.

The textbook rental rivalry between Chegg and BookRenter keeps heating up, with BookRenter raising $40 million in new venture funding from luminaries including Storm Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Lighthouse Capital Partners, Comerica Bank, Focus Ventures, and Adams Capital Management.  This brings their total war chest funding to $60 million in the race to become the leader in renting textbooks online.

Chegg and BookRenter have similar business models when it comes to renting books, but there are definitely some differences.  Chegg appears to be expanding into student portal with their acquisition of CourseRank, while BookRenter has partnered with over 500 college bookstores in the United States of which there are over 6,000 college bookstores nationwide.  These partnerships have allowed BookRenter to directly serve over six million college students or around 31 percent of the total college student population in the US.  This allows students to utilize BookRenter’s RapidReturns service which allows students, who rented books, to return them to participating local campus bookstores.  The bookstores benefit from increased buyback activity and merchandise activity, the students don’t have to worry about mail mishaps, and the environment wins by reducing the amount of waste normally generated by students mailing back individual books.

Today, BookRenter is announcing a partnership with The National Association of College Stores (NACS), which begin offering new BookRenter services to its 3,100 member book stores:

1. RapidReturns: Allows students to drop-off textbook rentals at their local college bookstore
2. BookRenter Local Warehousing: NACS stores will serve as local supply depots for BookRenter allowing faster delivery of rented books
3. BookRenter Inventory Management and Fulfillment: NACS book stores will be able to sell directly to other from their own inventory, reducing overstock issues, and increasing supply of textbooks available for rent to students nationwide.

BookRenter’s strategy is paying off big with growth of over 725% last year, with estimated revenues of $20 to $50 million, though this is still lagging behind Chegg with projected revenues of $130 million for the same time period.  There are other rapidly growing textbook rental companies like CollegeBookRenter, but the two giants BookRenter and Chegg are definitely the running for the crown – who do you think will win and why?