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 idea of renting textbooks 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 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 Chegg’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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
Thanks for the post!!
I was able to find a book I needed for my next course!!
Thanks again
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.
Whyrentbooks.com is absolutely AMAZING!!! This site is the future guys! You’ve gotta check it out!
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 !
@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!
Chegg is a good company – we are an affiliate of theirs!
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.
@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.
I’m a regular customer @ Chegg. And the most interesting thing at Chegg is that students who rent do have a choice of purchasing the book by paying the list price for the item excluding the textbook rental fee they have already done.
I used chegg this semester and although I have no problems with them, I probably will not use them in the future. At the end of the semester you send it back and you don’t have the option of reselling. It sucks because at the end of the year when my financial aid runs out and I need cash (especially summer) I can always rely on reselling books to pay quick fees. BUT, I love chegg and it is significantly cheaper for you (and ridiculously profitable for chegg) but in the future I will try book swapping to save money in the first place.
They buy books back too. Before I knew about chegg, I bought a calculus book at amazon for $120. At the end of the semester, my bookstore offered me $20. Chegg gave me $98.
Don’t trust whyrentbooks.com
They took my book and never paid me for it. Now, they cannot be contacted at all by Internet or phone.
We rent our texts online every semester from Chegg. I wanted to share a code that will give a discount on your text rental with Chegg. Put in the code when ordering and hit the “apply” button. The code will also give an additional $5 to you when selling them your used texts.
The code does not have an expiration date so it can be used with every order. Use code: CC123047
It’s fine to pass this information to others to save money.