I work in a VERY small college bookstore. We service mostly graduate students and education students working while finishing their degrees.
We do buyback all year long. For those of you who don’t know, buyback is a service we provide that will take those pesky textbooks that are weighing so heavily in your backpack and GIVE YOU MONEY FOR THEM.
We scan the book and the computer reads the wholesaler buyer’s guide and we give them the money that the wholesaler is offering us. That’s it. If the wholesaler doesn’t want it and we don’t need it for another class… you’re SOL. Don’t whine… it’s unbecoming.
I don’t care if you paid $150 for the book and you never opened it once. We’re still offering you $24 for a book you’re never going to read again. Isn’t that better than having it sit on your bookshelf, gathering dust and reminding you that you paid so much for a damn textbook.
If you bring in 30 textbooks from years past and ask me to look them up, I will gladly do that when I don’t have 3 other customers waiting to do quick food transactions. Please wait patiently until I am not busy.
If you bring in 30 books and I have to cross reference them between the computer and the buying guide because my database server is down, DO NOT POUT at me and stalk around the store while I look them up for you.
Absolutely do not have me look up books, telling you the price for each one, write out the order form and then, after I’ve rung it through the register, tell me you’ve changed your mind and we just don’t offer enough money, you’re taking your books somewhere else. You’re not getting better money, this is a national database. There are only so many textbook wholesalers, so shut up and either take the money or take your book home.
I actually enjoy doing buyback for some customers. They are genuinely happy to be getting ‘free’ money. Most of their texts are paid for by the schools/companies they work for so this truly is FREE money. I like to give people money. I do.
Alot of people bitch when a bartender doesn’t give them a free drink. It is typical in bars to give decent customers every third or fourth drink on the house. Friendly bartenders - sometimes more. However, it is a courtesy not a right, and neither the house nor the bartender is under any obligation to give you a buyback. That doesn’t stop certain drunken jerks from bitching about paying for drinks - sometimes even on the second drink. I hate it when peple do that.
Just to contribute slightly in the direction the OP was going, I remember a comedian once talking about how much textbooks cost. He said that paying hundreds of dollars for a book that you will get $15 for 3 months later isn’t a great deal. He was of the opinion that the act of buying the economics class textbook alone should result in you failing that class. The bit has always cracked me up.
Of course, it imparts a bit of bitterness on the student when he sees that book that he sold back for $20 being resold as used for $85.
College textbooks are the biggest ripoff and textbook companies are scum. They should be investigated by the DoJ for price gouging. And yes, I’m serious.
Count another one who thought this thread was gonna be about bars. You gotta earn those buybacks by being a good customer, tipping well and generally not being an ass, kids.
It’s even worse when your professor has royalty credit in the textbooks for his/her class and therefore requires you to buy the (essentially unchanged from the old edition) new edition instead of going used.
Yeah, it’s a scam and a ripoff, but complaining isn’t going to do a damn thing about it. As an undergrad, I’d regularly hear such complaints while working in the campus bookstore. I remember one poor schmuck who complained that he sold an expensive book back for pennies and now had to buy it again for another class. My response was always “They pay me minimum wage, I don’t see any of that money.” That usually shut them up.
Really, if you’re dumb enough to buy or sell books at the campus bookstore and don’t want to make the effort to buy or sell them personally (flyers, friends, etc.) or use one of many textbook websites (or ebay or half.com) which can save you a lot of money, then don’t complain to the poor underpaid wage slave, it’s not their fault you’re getting gouged.
I’ve done great using half.com for my textbook buying and selling- in fact, I’ve nearly always received the same amount back that I paid. Half.com all the way for me!
capacitor-My Psychology textbooks run me around $75-85. I had a shitty little 200 pager for an Econ elective I almost took that ran $95. I bet science and the maths and eningeerings run into the $100s to $150s easily.
Since I’m currently registered for next semester and I can do this, let me throw some prices out for my texts for next semester.
World Lit: $46 Used, $60 New
American Lit:$48 Used, $62 New
Critical Thinking: $50 Used, $67 New
Psych(1): $93 New (no used). “Optional” workbook $68.75 Used, $93 New
Psych(2): $67 Used, $90 New. “Optional” workbook, $15 New
Spanish: Textbook and Workbook, $90 New. “Optional” package with the 2 CD set, $120.
Textbooks are the biggest fucking scam going. The second biggest scam is “buyback”. Yea, we’ll buy it from you for $25, then sell it used for $60.
And I’m a liberal arts major. I shudder to think how bad the business/engineering/science types have it. And unfortunately, it’s not “free money” to me, though I usually try and sell it on Amazon and recoup some of the cost.
This works beautifully if you know what your textbooks are in advance. Next semester’s booklists won’t be available until the week before school starts. This sucks because I am probably going to need some reference books but don’t want to lay out the money until I know for sure.
My criminal law book was nearly $100 because I was forced to buy a new one, and it’s in pristine condition. The bookstore wants to give me $17 for it, because that particular class is only offered in the fall.
Yeah right. I’m gonna hang onto it and sell it back to them in late summer and get the $50 I deserve. I’ve looked at all the reputable book buying websites and they all want to screw me over, too.
I do hate how much money they make off us – selling them to other students for 5x what they gave us, or forcing us to buy new ed.
But the evil really starts with the teachers. My drama teacher had us buy twenty novels. TWENTY.
They are the people who decide to use this text or that text, that make these books so expensive in the FIRST place, when they could have gone with something cheaper, but they wanted the CD, etc.
I unfourtunately remember paying almost $200 for a text. The course was an elective, but I really wanted to take it, if I had known … That was the lab text, also had to buy lab book and course book, so the course cost almost $350 altogether just for books.
Sold them back for like $50 and just shrugged and said I should know better next time. I really didn’t have the option of selling it on consignment or something as the course was only offered about once every two years and only had about 30 or so people.
Now 7 years later I’m taking an afterdegree in Geology. Finally got brave enough to go back to school, and guess what course I have to take …? Yeah, and it probably uses the same text, after all Invertebrate Paleotology doesn’t really change that much.
Moral of story, maybe you should just keep your texts, because you never now when you will need them again!
