The Rotunda

Issue date: 12/2/09 Section: Features

Media Credit: Matt Orben

As you start to clean out your dorm and prepare for the end of the semester, you might find yourself in the predicament of having textbooks you no longer use. You know, the textbooks that you opened once the second week of class and shoved under your bed for the remainder of the semester. Chances are you paid a hefty price to obtain said book, and have absolutely no use for now.

When individual books cost anywhere from $50 to $200 as a rough estimate, the money students spend can add up fast. Although there are alternative venues such as Amazon and eBay to sell old textbooks, our own bookstore offers a convenient program called buy back. Buy back is the process of taking used textbooks to the bookstore and selling them back for a portion of the original paid price.

Skip Ursy, manager of the Barnes and Noble Bookstore at Longwood, explained there are two different prices that buy back operates from. A book that is going to be used another semester can be in buy back at the retail price of 50 percent of the original price. Books that will no longer be used have to be sold at 10 percent of the original price.

"Students think we are out to hose them. They think we charge too much, and they don't think we give enough money back at the end of the semester" explained Ursy.
He also said that students have a misconception about new books. The bookstore only makes profits in the 3-5 percent margin on new books, which equals a profit of $3 to $5 on a $100 textbook. Ursy also explained that with a used book the possibility exists of margins upwards of 50 percent.

Ursy used the example of a $100 textbook to explain how buy back works. He took the new $100 textbook and explained that the bookstore sells it used at $75. He explained that they give 50 percent back on books in good condition. With a new book the bookstore gives $50 and then sells it for $75, which equals a $25 profit for them.

With a used book, however, they give $37.50 and sell it at $75, which yields a profit of $37.50.

Last fiscal year, which is May to April for the bookstore, approximately $450,000 was paid out in buy back. That averages out to nearly $100 per student. "Our intention is always to give you 50 percent back for what you paid for," said Ursy.

"I can get more money online. It may take a while, but for the most part they all get sold. I just didn't get much money back and they didn't buy back a couple books," explained junior Jessie Stott, who chooses to not participate in buy back.

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