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Skyrocketing costs for tuition and course materials has led to a flux of online textbook purchases among college students.
Sites like TextbooksRus.com and Half.com offer students the opportunity to buy used textbooks at a fraction of the list price. Some even sell new editions at a discount.
Local bookstores do not feel threatened by low prices on the web, because they offer more personalized service. Shakespeare and Co. is a private bookseller that caters to seven local colleges: Hunter College, Marymount, NYU, The New School, Baruch, School of Visual Arts and Brooklyn College. The personal service at these stores is a welcome sight for those accustomed to clicking a mouse.
“We know exactly what the student needs,” said Peter Munoz, an employee at the Shakespeare & Co. near Hunter College. “We have all the course information stored in our computers, so they can come in with nothing more than a syllabus or course number and get all the books for that class.”
Refunds for books are only given ten days after the start of the semester, unless an authorized drop slip is provided for dropped classes, giving students four weeks. Websites like Amazon.com allow 30 days for returns, but shipping costs are deducted from the refund unless an error is made by Amazon.
Although Shakespeare incorporates small discounts into its list prices (making books slightly cheaper than at the Hunter college bookstore), the prices are still higher than those online. As with any local store, the advantage is the student’s convenience of having the book in hand within an hour.
