My fall term at SOU is fast approaching and I realized that I hadn't ordered my books yet! I quickly went to the SOU bookstore website to find out what books I need. The website is not set up the greatest, making it difficult to buy the books somewhere else. They do tell you what books you need, but with an abbreviated title, and if there are multiple authors it only lists one last name. It's really an art to find the ISBN #. I usually do a google search which (99% of the time) leads me to Amazon who has the ISBN #. Once I have the ISBN it is sooo much easier to search for the best price on the net.
(Sidenote: I cannot believe that SOU cannot trouble themselves with putting the ISBN on the website with the title of the book. My theory is that they want to make it as difficult as possible to shop anywhere else, but the overpriced SOU bookstore.)
After an afternoon of searching half.com (eliminates the middleman, school bookstore), ichapters.com (sells e-chapters & books so that you aren't paying for the manufacturing), ebay (cheap!), and chegg.com (rents textbooks for a fraction of the price) I ended up doing e-chapters for one book, ebay for one, and renting for 4! I'm amazed at the savings, while still expensive, which where incredible compared to the school bookstore.
SOU bookstore price $550
Actual cost from OTHER sources $280
TOTAL SAVINGS $270
It is astonishing to me that college students are still stupid enough to actually continue to shop at the overpriced bookstore. (ok, part of it is probably sheer laziness, but I can't afford to be lazy.)
No comments:
Post a Comment