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I buy books from the campus bookstore is when I can't find them anywhere else.

You can only find the best deals if you compare prices. This can be time consuming, but is very rewarding. By doing this I saved slightly over 43% off the total new price of all my books, and averaged a savings of 50% off each book I didn't buy new. Start with the school prices as a baseline, and then go online.

When shopping for books online, you want to pay attention to three things: Shipping cost and time, the seller's rating, and the condition of the book. Shipping cost is important; sometimes people will sell the book for cheap, and then make you pay out the nose for shipping. Likewise, if the shipping is cheap, but you wont receive the book for ten weeks that does you no good. The seller's rating is fairly self explanatory: you probably don't want to buy from people with poor ratings.

When buying used books, condition is a vital piece of information. Used books cost less, but where did they get it? Is it missing pages, or is it damaged or marked? Use the condition to make an informed choice about what you are buying. It is generally worth it to pay a dollar or two more to get a book in good used condition as opposed to one that is damaged, or has no listed condition. The one exception to this rule is damaged new books. Often the damage is not much, just enough to keep them from selling it at list price. For example I purchased a damaged new book that was 31% off. The only damage was that the title page and dedication were creased.

Don't buy anything online at this point. Bookmark the deals you've found, then walk downtown and check out the local used bookstores. If you live in a college town, odds are someone has sold them the textbook you are looking for. These odds are even better if you are in the humanities or arts, as many bookstores will have larger sections for those, as compared to the sciences.

Compare the online price to the price in the used bookstore, and check the books' condition. If there is a better value there, buy the book. Sometimes it's cheaper to pay a little bit more for the book in person, and avoids shipping fees.

After you've hit the used bookstores, purchase the remainder of the books online, or as a last resort, in the campus bookstore. This part is quick, as you have already found the books online, and now just have to buy them.

You too can save money, simply by looking a little harder and spending some time to find the best possible deals. Remember you can make back some of the money you spent by selling your books online or to the local bookstores at the end of the quarter.

Learn more about this author, Robert Alverson.
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