Every semester, college students must begin purchasing textbooks and materials for new classes again. Textbook prices seem to rise every year, and many students look to alternatives like rental books or shopping online to save money.
While the SUPe Store may be the most convenient location for students, some argue it’s not the most affordable place to pay for books.
Sam Oliver, a U. Alabama sophomore, said she’s tried a range of different options for purchasing her books.
“My Fluid Mechanics book cost $230 at the SUPe Store, but only $80 on Amazon,” Oliver said. “I then found the same book for only $20 on ValoreBooks.com.”
Oliver agrees it’s usually cheaper to buy books online, and even with additional shipping costs on top of the product price, Oliver said the prices still end up being cheaper rather than buying it from local college bookstores.
Maggie Abernathy, a UA senior, said the solution the nursing majors have is borrowing books from one another since the classes are consistent.
“This way I am paying my nursing friends a smaller amount by just renting the textbook from one another,” Abernathy said.
Phillip Kravtsov, a college student from New York City and founder of PostYourBook.com, said he was discouraged by the amount of money he had to spend on books and the amount he received back at the end of his semester.
“My freshman year of college I spent $1,100 on textbooks in the beginning of the semester for my classes,” Kravtsov said. “At the end of the semester, I returned to my local bookstore and was offered $280 for the same books.”
Kravtsov said he tried Amazon and Chegg’s buyback program thinking he would get a better deal, and was offered roughly $350.
In an effort to save his money, Kravtsov began to sell his textbooks for a little bit less than the full price and ended up selling all of his books for $930.
The idea clicked for Kravtsov to start a social networking website where college students can buy and sell textbooks to each other to avoid the overpricing of university bookstores, buyback programs and third party retailers. Kravtsov later formed a partnership with Josh Hiekali, a college student from Los Angeles, Calif., who had created a simplified exchanging type website that he had opened to three or four U. California schools.
“PostYourBook.com lets students post the textbooks they have from previous classes and allows other students to contact them to buy their books from them,” Kravtsov said.
One year later, PostYourBook.com has now become a popular online sharing textbook site among several universities including The University of Alabama.
“The University of Alabama got 205 book posts in three days with one email marketing blast,” Kravtsov said. “What started out in a few schools now turned into 155 universities with 155,000 users.”
Kravtsov said unlike other book websites, PostYourBook.com is not a buyback program.
“The bookstores, Amazon, Chegg and all those other website own warehouses purchase textbooks at very low prices from students who are finished with their classes then resell them at double the amount they purchased them for and make a profit,” Kravtsov said.
Kravtsov said all PostYourBook.com does is connect Person A (who just finished the semester and wants to make more money than a buyback program) with Person B (who doesn’t want to buy a textbook at full price).
“Our website saves students money as long as they price their book accordingly,” Kravtsov said. “We aren’t some big corporation trying to rip people off.”
Another company, TextbookPartners.com, offers students a chance to earn money for their organization, such as a sorority, when ordering textbooks through its website.
Sarah Altschuler, a freshman majoring in education, said she used TextbookPartners.com last semester and plans on using the website again for the future.
“I saved 85 percent on my textbook costs,” Altschuler said. “It was rewarding knowing the sales benefited my sorority while saving money.”