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Few things in life are guaranteed. According to Ben Franklin and a long ago American History class the only guarantees in life are death and taxes. Thankfully after 200 plus years we can now add text buybacks to that illustrious list. More websites and even many bookstores are now offering guaranteed buybacks on certain texts they sell. The most notable of these is Textbooks.com.

Textbooks.com’s guaranteed buyback program is well established and can be quite beneficial for students. Qualifying books are easily identified on CampusBooks.com’s price comparison tool and students will know prior to the purchase if their book will be bought back and for exactly how much. This means no more buyback counter lotto where you can get anywhere from nothing to $100 on any given book.

The guarantee is ironclad as long as the student adheres to a couple of rules. The book must be returned within a specific time frame at the end of each semester. For the first semester this is December 31st; for the semesters ending May 31st books must be returned by June 30th. Textbook.com also provides a free shipping label to cover the costs. The book must also be returned in good condition. Which means no excessive highlighting, no ripped pages, and no water damager. All you need to do is take care of your book and get to the post office on time to guarantee yourself 50% of your purchase price.

Textbooks.com insists that you purchase a new copy to qualify for the buyback guarantee. As a result you might still save more money by purchasing a used copy and taking a chance at the buyback counter. This however can be a huge risk because it is always possible the book will resale for nothing on campus. I prefer the thought of money in the bank and guarantees help me to sleep well at night.

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Textbooks are expensive. It is a fact if not a universal law. Thankfully in the 21st Century there are more options other than your campus bookstore. There are in fact dozens of options online where one can shop for the best price on their books. The same is true when it comes time to resell those books. For those who are excessively thorough it can take hours to surf through all of those sites in order to track 5your book titles.

Different PCTs (price comparison tools) will list different prices for the same website. For example, a copy of Biology (ISBN 080537146X) has a $20 dollar cost swing on Half.com according to two leading websites. Some websites list shipping costs, while others go a step further and list the costs of different shipping options. Some don’t list shipping costs at all requiring some extra work. Certain websites also list any website coupons or deals within the information about the book.

Campusbooks.com has a pretty incredible Price Comparison Tool. Campusbooks.com is dedicated to the textbook marketplace, and as a result invest tremendous resources to building and improving their PCT. It lists the leading web marketplaces—eBay, Half.com, eCampus, Textbooks.com, Barnes&Noble.com, and Amazon.com as well as a dozen others. The site goes on to break down the version of the text (New, Used, International, Rental, eBook or Teacher’s) and its lowest price. They offer a level of filtering that provides a tremendous amount of information on one page. They include everything from shipping price and availability to condition quality notes to coupons and merchant return policies. In a word, it’s extensive.

As always it pays off to be thorough. Nowadays thanks to Campusbooks.com and similar websites it takes far less time to be thorough and find the best textbook deals. The PCT’s are great but nothing is perfect. Take a little extra time and double check through the specific website, most will list comments regarding the buyer or seller. When that poorly rated seller is offering a too good to be true deal on that textbook it probably is.

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Amazon.com is an amazing website. One can purchase just about anything on there . . . gardening supplies, clothing, furniture, electronics, books, and even textbooks. In fact more and more students are turning towards Amazon.com as a one-stop Internet shop for all their needs. And why not order your textbooks from there? It beats waiting in line at the bookstore. It beats having to carry them all across campus back to your room. And it’s usually far easier to find my books on Amazon.com also.

My friends, those are all excellent reasons. What too many people fail to realize though is that those reasons exist for every single online textbook company. Amazon.com has a lot of competition out there in the textbook marketplace. If one is interested in doing some real shopping one should explore more than one store. When you go to the mall do you only to one store? No, you go to a bunch. The Internet can be thought of as a mall where you don’t have to walk. Considering how much less time it takes to shop online it’s a no-brainer to check out some of the competition.

Of course it’s easy to think of Amazon.com and them alone. Their name is everywhere whether in the news, or advertising on TV and the Internet. If you want to buy something and run a Google search on it chances are Amazon.com will appear near the top. All that exposure drives business and often there are great bargains to be had on textbooks through amazon.com. But, as always I caution you to explore your options. At times you might be able to save hundreds of dollars by sourcing used textbooks on another site.

If the prospect of sourcing textbooks has you already bookmarking Amazon.com do not fret. Campusbooks.com has a price comparison tool that shows you the textbook price across a wide variety of websites including Amazon.com. Plus, it also explains any shipping costs and other fine print that may increase the price or wait time for the book. So, with little to no effort you’ve sourced your textbook across multiple websites and found the best price. Perhaps you should bookmark Campusbooks.com.

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Today’s entry is going to be short and to the point. In the most general sense a ‘Used Textbook‘ can be classified as any book that isn’t brand new. Now, why might you want one? Again it doesn’t take much insight into the world of textbooks to understand. Simply put, they are usually cheaper. Much like a car rolling off a lot, once that new textbook is purchased from the bookstore it immediately depreciates making it a bargain for the next owner. This is especially true if the original owner took good care of it, making sure to not rip any pages or disfigure the cover.

The used textbook while usually cheaper and thus a better value is not for everyone. More often than not the used book is pre-highlighted, with notes in the margins, and significant passages underlined. Some students are too distracted to follow along in a marked text. Some prefer to make their own notes and highlights. You never know, the book’s previous owner may have been an imbecile who simply liked to play with highlighters which invalidates all those notes. Campusbooks.com lists the conditions of used books within the seller’s comments when you perform a price comparison. This way you can make an informed decision when purchasing your text.

It is important to note that the used book is not ALWAYS the cheapest. On occasion a diligent student might be able to find an international edition or perhaps a teachers edition of the same book that has been further discounted. As always, it is best to do your research when buying your textbooks online.