Textbook 101: Low Stress and Low Cost Book Buying

Back to school once more, but back to budget spending? I think not. The latest trend among college students has keep them on their computers and away from campus until its time to hit the books.

And where are they getting these books from? Online, of course. More and more sites are beginning to pop up that offer everything from substantial savings on books to free shipping. 

Online text shopping is not an entirely new idea, but with more and more people becoming comfortable with shopping online, this market is rising in popularity. With approximately three billion dollars a year in the college textbook industry, it isn't surprising that new methods to increase sales and profit are being implemented.

The Companies

Not all dot com companies are created equal, and this is readily apparent in the college book market. While two of the largest booksellers on the web, Amazon and Barnes and Noble, do offer college textbooks and specials pertaining to their purchase, they are geared more towards general sales.

Efollett, eCampus, and Varsitybooks are some of the most popular and lucrative of these companies, and each handles the market with a slightly different bent.

Efollett derives most of its profit by integrating its storefronts into college bookstores nationwide, allowing for partnerships between colleges, and to augment the physical campus bookstores and take some of the strain of stocking the books.

The nature of the textbook market, costs typically run very high for both books and shipping, as a variety of obscure texts need to be procured from a variety of different publishers. Efollett helps to mitigate these frustrations by channeling all the books and shipments through a central hub of their own warehouse, and several of their partners.

ECampus allows you to both buy and sell textbooks through their site, but their goal is to augment the college bookstore, instead of replacing it. To help with this cooperative outlook, they offer commissions to the schools from students that use eCampus.