RentScouter

Half Price Books has an aggressive plan for buying back used college textbooks and selling back those books online.

With headquarters in Texas, the family owned chain of over 110 bookstores is starting a pilot program in nine of its stores to become more active in the used college textbook buyback space.  Half Price Books has always allowed students to sell books and textbooks for cash at their locations.  Students have sought out school book savings at their stores for years, despite Half Price Books (HPB) not having an inventory system, but now HPB wants to draw in more students and see how much of the multi-billion dollar textbook buying and selling market they can garner.

How does Half Price Books stack up to the competition?  Their stores are generally located in malls and more suburban locations, but they have around 20% of their stores near college campuses.  This compares to the over 800 college bookstores operated by Follett based in Oakbrook, Illinois, and the over 600 stores operated by Barnes & Noble – the two largest bookstore companies serving the textbook market.  The National Association of College Stores (NACS) indicates the following:

59 percent of college textbooks are still purchased at bookstores or their websites

26 percent of textbooks are purchased online at venues like Amazon or Chegg

15 percent of remaining textbooks are bought and sold via student to student, alumni, or other bookstores like HPB

This means that nearly 75% of college students are still paying too much for books by not getting a price comparison.

Half Price Books is starting its textbook buyback program this month at nine stores near college campuses: University of Washington in Seattle, Washington; Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas; University of California Berkeley in Berkeley, California; University of Arizona in Tempe, Arizona; and five other locations.  According to HPB executive vice president Kathy Doyle Thomas, “We’re experts in the used book business. And we know college students are already in our stores buying the Julius Caesar supplement reading for a class on Shakespeare, but we haven’t been buying their calculus or economics textbook.”  Half Price Books will only sell back these used school books to students online, mostly likely through their Alibris portal.  RentScouter will allow students buying textbooks online to see these prices in comparison to normal used book and textbook rental prices.

The NACS reports that the average higher education student is spending $667 over the previous year on textbooks, workbooks, and related course materials.  Over 75% of students still prefer printed textbooks versus etextbooks, with extextbooks only comprising up to 10% of sales by 2012 according to the NACS.  According to a representative at the University of Texas Co-op in Austin, TX sales of electronic textbooks are growing, but reading a novel works well on a laptop or tablet – not an algebra or biology textbook.  Another issue with electronic textbooks is that they are generally not the cheapest textbook option, especially when one considers they can not be sold back for cash, or even transferred to another student.

While Half Price Books is rolling out a new textbook buyback program in nine stores, any HPB location will buy back used books, CD, DVDs, or video games just like always.  HPB is seeing what they can do to gain part of the almost six billion dollars a year textbook business in this trying economy while stores like Barnes & Noble are trying to diversify and Borders is rapidly closing stores.  In the flagship HPB store in Dallas, a new conveyor system and six buying stations has been implemented to speed up book buyback processing allowing them to buy back 8,000 to 13,000 books a day, compared to a wait time of up to an hour or more on the old system.

Get a buyback price comparison on RentScouter first, but don’t hesitate to check the buyback prices at your local Half Price Books.

According to a 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office, the price of textbooks rose six percent every year from 1986 to 2004. That is twice the rate of inflation. According to College Board, the average U.S. college student spent $ 1,122 on textbooks for the 2009-2010 academic year, a 32 percent boost from five years earlier.

In recent years numerous options have emerged to address the skyrocketing price of textbooks. Websites such as Chegg and BookRenter have emerged offering textbook rental programs. Major online retailers like Amazon and Half.com have answered with used textbook initiatives. Finally, on campus bookstores, in partnership with book retailers such as Barnes & Nobel and Rent-A-Text, have begun offering rental programs at over 1,000 college campuses.

These days students can purchase or rent books online or on campus. The rapidly growing number of options has created fierce price competition. However, a lot of the pricing information was previously unavailable. That all changed this year. In 2008 Congress passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which needed all college bookstores to publicly list their new, used and rental textbook prices no later than June, 2010. CampusBooks is the very first textbook price comparison web site to take advantage of this public data.

Via it’s web site, iPhone and Android applications CampusBooks enables students to compare prices and availability from over 40 of the very best-recognized on the web textbook retailers. Starting today those students will also be able to check prices and availability of books at thousands college bookstores and libraries from across the country. Students who enter their location into the CampusBooks website or use geo-targeting technology on their mobile devices can come across the closest brick-and-mortar locations where their books are obtainable.

“Students still acquire the vast majority of their textbooks at their campus bookstore,” says Jeff Cohen, CEO of CampusBooks. “We are the 1st and only textbook comparison internet site to integrate prices from these outlets. We even tell students if their book is accessible at their college library. So whether you want to buy, rent or borrow, on-line or on campus, CampusBooks provides pricing details from each achievable source of college textbooks.”

With purchase and rental, online and on campus data, CampusBooks is the most comprehensive textbook outlet. A student sitting in their dorm at Notre Dame might search for a biology textbook on CampusBooks and come across that the book is readily available to rent at her college bookstore. An additional student shopping at the exact same college bookstore may possibly not be able to afford a textbook. Using the iPhone app to scan the barcode of a book, this student may well come across that the book is accessible for free of charge at the Notre Dame library.

CampusBooks delivers students the widest selection of books whether renting or buying used textbooks. Students can simply figure out what route they want to take when they have all the accurate details in front of them.

About CampusBooks:

CampusBooks.com is a free service that searches the Web for the lowest prices on used and new textbooks.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day and welcome to the RentScouter.com textbook rental blog !!

This site and blog were started with these primary goals:

1. Host and facilitate discussion about the renting textbooks
2. Review and discuss the various companies offering book rentals
3. Help everyone get the absolute best book rental price on their textbook or any book

All of this will take a little time to develop on the site, but in the future we will focus on helping you get the best cheap textbooks and cash for your textbooks.  In time, we will add even more functionality to help with not only textbooks, but help you find the best price when selling CDs, DVDs, or even video games.  Furthermore, we hope to help further green the environment by finding a recycling partner for electronics to help you sell your cell phone for cash.

Thanks,

The RentScouter Team

P.S. We have now added a textbook buyback price comparison for when you need to sell your textbooks for cash and Better Business Bureau rankings which coupled with user ratings of textbook buyback companies should give our users the utmost confidence in deciding how to sell or buy textbooks.

P.S.S. CExchange has joined up with RentScouter.com to help you get the most cash for your electronics without the worry of items going into the landfill, please check out the prices if you are looking to sell electronics.