RentScouter

Amazon Textbook Buyback or Cash for Textbooks – Your Best Option?

It is the time of year when lots of textbook companies are hoping to buy back textbooks to sell back in the fall.  As someone endeavoring to get the highest price for your textbooks should you attempt to get cash for textbooks or try the new Amazon Textbook Buyback program which only offers Amazon credit?

Cash for Textbooks or Amazon Textbook Credit?

Amazon has been heavily pushing their Amazon Prime program to college goers via their Amazon Student Savings program.  Amazon Student offers free two-day shipping on eligible products with a year of Amazon Prime shipping benefits and other special offers via email.  Amazon offers this program for free to students that provide their school, major, and .edu email address.

Amazon claims students can get back up to 70% back on their used textbooks, but haven’t recently gotten into some legal action with the National Association of College Stores over their claims.  The Amazon textbook buyback program has been getting good reviews here at RentScouter with the program building a great deal of popularity despite only offering credit.  However, since Amazon sells everything from diapers to gourmet food, people are generally pretty happy with getting credit when they sell back books instead of cash for textbooks.  Plus, Amazon’s buy back program offers a great deal more than most companies offering to buy back textbooks.

Let’s look at a couple examples of cash for textbooks versus Amazon textbook buyback credit:

9781416056171  Physical Examination and Health Assessment by Jarvis

Amazon is currently offering $71.10 in credit, while the next best textbook buyback price is $9.00 from BookByte.  The cheapest price for this textbook is currently $15.63 used on Amazon.

9780495800187  A Concise Introduction to Logic by Hurley

Amazon is currently offering $56.86 in credit, while the next best book buyback price is $7.84 from Moola4Books, while it can be purchased used on Amazon for $16.00.

9780321558145  Campbell Biology with MasteringBiology 9th Edition by Reece

Amazon is currently offering $95.00 in credit, while TextbookRus is offering $103.00 and it can be bought as a used textbook for $141.95.

As you can see, sometimes you can get more cash for textbooks than Amazon credit, but are textbook buyback companies and Amazon equal?

From our own textbook trade-in tests to Amazon they are very picky on condition and supplemental materials.  They will reject most books that contain any sort of marking or do not include a CD or DVD or even access code.  Meanwhile, most companies that buy back textbooks will certainly take books with a reasonable amount of marking or highlighting, though most will not take textbooks missing required CDs or DVDs.

How does Amazon offer so much credit instead of cash for textbooks?

Amazon’s textbook buyback program is run by NorAm International which ultimately becomes Nebraska Book Company (NBC) one of the largest wholesale textbook companies that supplies new and used textbooks to hundreds of college bookstores across the nation and textbook rental companies as well.  NBC can offer more for textbooks through Amazon only for school books it knows they can resell for a much higher price, or sell to a book rental company that will offer it as a textbook rental several times.  So while you are getting a good deal of Amazon credit for your textbook trade-in, whoever has to buy that textbook next is not getting a bargain.

That is why a used book might be selling used on Amazon for $15.00 and they are offering $70.00 in credit – because NorAm is offering Amazon more because the book can be resold at a higher price, or used as a textbook rental several times.  However, remember that Amazon often loses money on certain products to make money on others, and they know if they give you $70.00 in credit, they are making 15% back in the commission they charge on every item you purchase on Amazon.  They also know that by giving you Amazon credit they are helping to retain you as a future customer that will spend more and more money with them – for instance, buying new textbooks that they will make a pretty penny in commission.

Cash for Textbooks or Amazon Textbook Buyback – if you need the cash get the highest price, otherwise you probably make out best with Amazon credit unless you don’t order much from Amazon.

As Earth Day approaches we are going to start expanding upon our previous post asking whether renting textbooks is environmentally friendly.  The first point of discussion was the following:

1. Renting books has been happening for years in the form of buying textbooks from your local university bookstore and (hopefully) selling the books after finals.  However, the textbook shuffle by publishers producing new book editions stops this rental cycle.

Renting, as defined as buying and selling your book, from your local bookstore is more environmentally friendly than renting from Chegg, BookRenter, CampusBookRentals, etc.  Why?

1. Books are heavy to ship, they are already going to be at your local bookstore, based upon their years of experience of supplying enough books for the local demand.
2. Waiting till the last minute and ordering your book that gets shipped via air is very environmentally unfriendly (planes burn more gas than trucks). Walking down to your local store obviously releases much less carbon than a plane or a truck.

So why are rental companies growing so rapidly?  It all boils down to money.  If your local bookstore is charging you $135 for your Biology book, and you can rent your book online for $75 – seems most people would rent it and save the $60 difference.  However, if you purchase that book you have the right to sell it when finished.  Generally, for a popular “current edition” textbook, you can get between 50-75% of the current market price via textbook buyback (if you hunt around).  So, let’s take the low end, 50% of $135 is $67.50, which means that you actually spent less than if you had rented the book, and you were much friendlier to the environment.

I can already feel people jumping out of their seats and saying, “The bookstores give me pennies, or nothing at all”.  In many cases, you are right because of what I call the “textbook shuffle”.  The textbook shuffle is the practice of publishers constantly creating “new editions” of textbooks.  Without a doubt, one advantage of renting is you don’t have to worry about the buyback value of our book.  In recent years, you can find your best buyback value online with TextbooksRus, Blue Rocket Books, Powell’s, or others to find the best price for your book.  However, this is not necessarily the most environmentally friendly practice either, because you are again incurring the additional shipping and packaging of the book.  An interesting concept is Rent A Text, by Follett, which is utilizing existing supply and distribution channels (your local bookstores) to deliver textbook rentals.

In summary, the most environmentally friendly option would be to purchase and sell back your textbook or rent from a walkable location; however, economics often trump the environment.  Next, we will discuss ways in which rental companies are addressing their environmental impact.