Rent Your Textbooks?
In my inbox this morning, I came upon a curious little message, which told me to “Rent your books this semester!” It came from Chegg, one of the many college textbook exchanges I joined while trying to sell my unwanted textbooks.
This Textbookflix idea intrigues me, but I’m not sure if it’s really a good idea. From the website:
Renting Textbooks is Smarter!
- Save up to 55-65% on books by renting.
- No waiting in line.
- Quick Delivery & Easy Returns.
- Reusing books helps the environment.
All good things - saving money, saving time, and saving the environment. But how is this better than using Chegg’s normal service? Or any of the many other sites that facilitate textbook exchange, like Starving Scholars or the Facebook Marketplace?
Buying your textbooks used directly from students also saves you money, and it’s also reusing the book, so it’s better for the environment as well. I suppose the only difference in renting books is that it saves you time.
So the difference here is, would you rather save more time, or more money? Personally, I’d rather take the time to hunt down the book from someone on campus, or a used copy on Amazon, and then sell it myself at the end of the semester.
Also, I find that with some of my textbooks, I don’t necessarily want to get rid of them at the end of the semester. A lot of my film textbooks were just downright interesting reads, or insanely useful for future classes, or a great reference for my future career. If I had rented them, I’d probably keep several of them at the end of the semester.
It doesn’t say on Textbookflix’s website how much that would cost me (although it does say that you can do it), but I suspect it would be a premium price, costing me more in the long run.
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Hi:
Thanks for writing about us. You make good points about buying from other students on a campus but we realized with Chegg, that it is sometimes hard to find book for every student as you will never have the entire population posting books on the site.
Also regarding buying the rental books at the end of semester, it is possible and the price will NOT be a premium. The price you pay will be the difference of the Selling price - Rental price and it will still be cheaper than the bookstore.
Comment by Aayush — August 12, 2007 @ 8:00 pm
Aayush,
If the “selling price” you’re talking about is the “list price” on your website, then yes, I consider that a premium, because it seems to be higher than the cost of the books on Amazon (new, not used). In other words, in order to keep the book, I’d have to pay more than the new price from Amazon, which I consider to be “a premium.”
Comment by Stephanie — August 13, 2007 @ 12:11 am
I’m sure it’s worth it for some students, whose time is at a premium. My university had 7-week terms, and we were often unable to find out the required books until only a day or two before the class started - this could rule out systems like Half.com which can take up to 2 weeks to actually complete the transaction and deliver the book.
The best solution in my mind is to buy textbooks from other students at the same university (even if you find them via Facebook) - no one has to worry about shipping or delays, and everyone wins on price.
Comment by Anitra — August 14, 2007 @ 11:02 am
Text book rental is a fantastic idea. BookSwim — http://www.bookswim.com — also rents books: leisure reading fiction and nonfiction, but have a monthly subscription model which really keeps the price low for big readers. If the average bestseller costs $20 to buy, our book rental model allows potentially 5 or more books at the same price.
Stephanie, you may want to take a look and show your readers how they can save money by renting books instead of buying.
Comment by George Burke — August 14, 2007 @ 12:00 pm
Hi Stephanie:
I did not mean list price and that is why I said selling price. Most of the selling price on our website is lower than the list price on amazon.
Also, the student is renting the book so technically we are doing a nice thing by allowing the user to buy it. We have to go and source another book. We just request the student gives us ample notice so that we can get the replacement in time.
Comment by Aayush — August 14, 2007 @ 4:44 pm
Thanks for the post!!
I was able to find a book I needed for my next course!!
Thanks again
Comment by JW Thornhill — August 16, 2007 @ 6:11 am
I found another site with a really cool twist to the whole textbook renting scheme. They actually allow students to make money renting out books they already own on WhyRentBooks.com. I’ve listed five books and I’ve already rented one out! It’s nice to know too that your money is going to other students, not just a company.
Comment by Danny — March 10, 2008 @ 1:56 am
Whyrentbooks.com is absolutely AMAZING!!! This site is the future guys! You’ve gotta check it out!
Comment by Michael — March 24, 2008 @ 11:44 pm
I’m glad I found out this post by accident on Google. I never thought of textbooks renting and it’s really an amazing idea.
Any first-hands experience on this ? Does it really work ?
Thanks so much for the idea !
Comment by ilamma — July 15, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
@ilamma - Yes! It really does work! I’ve rented textbooks from them twice now, and it’s just been great. Pay about half price, then send it back at the end of the class with pre-paid postage. I highly recommend this service!
Comment by Stephanie — July 16, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
Chegg is a good company - we are an affiliate of theirs!
Comment by Cheap Textbook Rentals — July 23, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
First of all thanks for writing this article. I do not agree with renting textbooks, its just a way for a company to take one textbook and make many times its worth. I’d rather use a website like http://www.helpineedbooks.com which searches the majority of the bookstores like amazon, half, valore, powells etc in seconds and gives the condition, price and a link to the book. I found this saves me more and like you said I can keep the book or sell it back.
Comment by james — September 7, 2008 @ 8:27 am
@James - thanks for coming by and letting people know about that site - it could certainly be helpful! The one problem I see with “helpIneedbooks” is that you can’t filter out international editions. I don’t like buying those because they’re very hard to sell after I use them. I would rather rent than get an international edition - that’s just my preference, so I like search engines that let me filter those out.
Comment by Stephanie — September 8, 2008 @ 12:18 pm