Convenience Costs a Pretty Penny

Buying books for college can be a considerable expense. Aside from the price tag, the first week of classes also features long waiting lines as many students rush to buy their books. The Viking’s Cove bookstore offers several services which can save the student the hassle of waiting in line, yet as accessible as the bookstore in the campus center is, it is not necessarily the most economical of options when comparing its prices to Amazon.com. Student Kyle Martens remarked, “It’s cheaper to buy on Amazon, but easier to buy here [HVCC bookstore].”

The bookstore is a service provided by the Faculty-Student Association (FSA). Compared to online book shopping on Amazon.com, the bookstore, offers a more convenient but pricy purchase of textbooks. Services that the bookstore offers include the textbook pre-pack deal. This is a free service offered to students, where bookstore staff will package ordered textbooks and lab supplies. The student can submit an order form as early as they register and pick up the books without waiting in line. “It was convenient” said student Alexander Renna, who had taken advantage of the service before.

The pre-pack service also provides students with better odds at getting used books as they can order before the semester starts. According to store manager Stephen Stegman, “It’s the best way to buy used books.” In addition to the convenience of shopping at the bookstore, students can win prizes just for submitting a pre-pack order form. The grand prize includes receiving a semester of books for free, while two runner-ups will receive a gift certificate to the store.

The Viking’s Cove bookstore also features a buyback table where students can receive cash for their books. Buybacks are offered each month, during finals week and the first week of classes. During buybacks, the bookstore purchases select texts at 50% the current new retail price.

The popular notion toward the bookstore is that it’s much more convenient to purchase books there, but how much would a student save shopping for books on Amazon.com? A comparison was made to quantify the differences in price between the two sources.

In a sample of forty required textbooks, the average new price at the HVCC bookstore was $123, while the same list on Amazon was an average price of $97. That is a 21% savings if the student were shopping on Amazon, but not including shipping and handling. The average used price for those set of books at the HVCC bookstore was $92, whereas shopping at Amazon would have only been $81 a book, which is a 12% savings. The HVCC bookstore does have a price matching policy however, which applies to only new books, includes shipping and handling, and must be in stock at a non-auction internet site.