Why You Need to Sell Used Textbooks

The unique conditions of the textbook market allow publishers to charge students prices more than books are worth. One way to fight back is to sell used textbooks, which keeps the used textbook market strong, combats high prices and makes you money at the same time.

You may not realize it, but when you sell used textbooks, you’re actually helping to combat peculiar conditions of the textbook market that hurt students financially.

Prices for consumer products are usually regulated by supply and demand. If the price for a particular product is too high, less people will be willing to pay for it. As demand decreases, the seller is forced to bring the price back down to sell more products. This process is supposed to automatically bring prices to the level that they “should” be, sometimes referred to as the price that the market will bear. However, textbooks are a unique kind of consumer product, and as a result, the market for textbooks breaks the usual rules.

For one thing, with most products, the person selecting the product and the person paying for the product are one in the same. Not so for textbooks. In the case of textbooks, the product is selected by one person (the professor), but paid for by another (the students).

Professors generally get their examination copies of textbooks for free. Because the professor doesn’t have to pay for the book, the selection he or she makes is independent of the price of the textbook. In fact, a study conducted by the Connecticut Board of Governors for Higher Education found that the majority of professors (57%) did not choose textbooks based on price or affordability, and that another 42% didn’t even know how much the books they assigned cost.

On the other side of the coin, the student pays for the book whether or not the price is one they would otherwise be willing to pay, because they have no say in choosing the book. In addition, textbooks are not optional purchases for students, they're mandatory. Textbooks might not be a necessity in the way that food or water is a necessity, but they are absolutely necessary for anyone who wishes to remain a college student.

These facts create a situation where market forces simply cannot regulate prices the way that they do for most products. This nearly unique market allows publishers to charge much more for textbooks than straightforward supply and demand would dictate they are worth.

The only way students can get around these artificially inflated prices is to seek out those who sell used textbooks. Bookstores and online sources such as college textbook buy back sites sell used textbooks for a lower price, which in some ways exerts pressure on textbook prices by lowering demand for new copies. However, publishers have long since figured out a way to deal with that issue.

Publishers constantly release new editions of textbooks, making the older, used editions worthless. That’s why it is so important sell back textbooks quickly.

Despite the publishers’ best efforts, the used textbook marketplace still alive, thanks in part to the internet. However, students like you need to sell used textbooks in order to keep it going. Keeping the used market strong is good for everyone. When you sell used textbooks, you not only get a little money in your pocket, you help to preserve one of the last holdouts against textbook publishers and their high prices. By participating in the used textbook market, you are helping to lower prices for all students, including yourself.

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