Buying and reselling textbooks can be a frustrating financial decision for college students.
Some students purchase their books at the MHC bookstore downtown every semester, and others find it too expensive and switch to buying books from other places.
Corrine Roberts, a freshman, said that last semester she purchased her books from the bookstore, but this semester she bought them from Amazon.
“It’s cheaper,” she said.
Roberts spent around $500 on her six books last semester.
Brittany Rodulfo, a sophomore, purchased her books from the MHC bookstore the past two years with the help of a book voucher. A book voucher is provided by the school for use at the bookstore. The college takes money out of a student loan and designates a portion of it to be used on needed books.
Rodulfo spent several hundred dollars on her books this year.
“I’m thinking for this semester it was like 500 (dollars). No, it wasn’t even that, it was like 400. Last semester was like, oh gosh, 700,” she said.
Neither Rodulfo nor Roberts has attempted to sell their books back to the bookstore, but other students have tried, and in some cases, were unhappy.
The bookstore offers a 50 percent buy-back plan, but Daryl Norton, the bookstore manager, said the store isn’t always financially able to buy books back at 50 percent.
“It’s up to 50 percent is what it (flier) says, and it’s 50 percent if we need it, but it really depends on the number we have in stock already,” Norton said.
Another reason that some students don’t get 50 percent back is because they didn’t purchase their books at the bookstore.
“Sometimes it’s not 50 percent because they didn’t buy the book here. If they’d bought the book here … they would have gotten it,” Norton said.
If a student has purchased books from the Mars Hill Bookstore, has the receipt, and the bookstore is able to use the book next semester, they should get 50 percent back, according to Norton.
Another situation students may find frustrating when selling books back downtown is that the bookstore will not purchase all books back. Norton said one reason is because the bookstore cannot afford to buy them all back, especially in cases when the book is overstocked or not required the following semester.
“The reason we don’t take them back is that they aren’t required for the next semester, and we don’t have a need for that book on our shelves,” he said. “Evidently, the wholesaler, which came in and was purchasing books that we didn’t use … they were not buying it back either.”
If the bookstore bought them back, it would be losing money by buying items that it could not sell.
LAA books are different, he said. Norton said the bookstore cannot buy back LAA books for copyright reasons.
“Some of the books, like your LAA books -- those that the college actually purchases the right to copy -- in the copyright law you can only sell that copyright one time. So that makes it difficult to resale,” he said.
Sometimes the bookstore is also unable to buy students books back because it can only purchase a certain number of books.
“In the fall, say we order 20; we only sold eight because of online sales. We still have 12 back there in stock, and we’re only needing 20 for fall again,” he said. “The problem there is that if the student came in that didn’t (buy the book in the bookstore), we have no way of saying we can only buy from this group first. So if a student who bought online brings a book back in and sells it, then I hate to say it, but they are beating out the student who came in (and bought from the bookstore),” Norton said.
The bookstore is unable to designate a time for students who have purchased books from the bookstore to sell their books back at the best price. That’s because of the short time publishers provide to return/sell the books back to them.
It can be advantageous for students to wait to sell their books back a semester later because some classes are only offered every other semester. This could help get more money for certain titles.
Some students find it difficult deciding if they should buy all of their required books.
Roberts said that it is hard to decide which to buy -- meal plans, books or parking decals.
“It’s hard to decide what to buy between books, parking passes and food because a lot of people can’t afford them all,” she said.
The bookstore is unable to lower their prices, but they are attempting to make it easier on students by providing new services.
Norton told The Hilltop that the bookstore is hoping to start providing E-textbooks and book rentals.
Students would be able to download books offline for a cheaper price than purchasing a physical copy, and students would be able to rent books for a semester for a lower cost than purchasing them.
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