How do you beat a huge corporation?

Question

Here's the situation



Every semester its easy to spend 6-7-800$ on books at the campus bookstore. then the bookstore "buys them back for 1-200$ and re-sells them again next semester for 6-7-800$. I'm quite sick of this and am attempting to do some thing about it. there's a site (www.craigslist.com) where people post stuff they don't need anymore and sell them at the price they want. This means more money coming in for the student selling and less money going out for the student buying. this way everybody wins (except the bookstore who i want terribly to loose). I'd like people to be aware of this alternative as it is a free site and logically better for all.



I am not a business or marketing major and I have limited resources.

Answer 1

Try ebay or encourage other student to sell to each other. Put a post up on craigslist. Also amazon.com has used books.

Answer 2

I understand your anger but what else can you do. The Professors decide each semester what books they will use for the semester. Some use the same book year after year, but most books have new editions and professors are going to go with the newest versions. Actually I was glad the bookstore even bought my books back. I had no use for them anymore and that little extra money was nice. And the money made from your books goes towards your school, wheres your school spirit? lol

Answer 3

I really like your idea of selling and buying on craigslist.

I agree that the service of reselling books by the bookstore seems quite greedy. I was also thinking about the overhead the bookstore has which someone has to pay for. Consumers are the ones who get to pay...no questions.

Again, I like what you did....identified the problem, took steps toward finding a solution and then, icing on the cake, you shared it with others who will benefit from your efforts. Way to go!!!!

Answer 4

At my campus the bookstore buys used books for 50% of the price and sells them at 75% with visible stamp 'Used'.

In addition there are couple of independent cooperative book stores where students leave their book for sale at a price they wish. Upon sale, the bookstore takes 10% of the sales price. Also, the book section of ours university classifieds are a great source for used books - again without interference from a middleman.

See, there are quite a few ways to buy books on a cheaper price.

You are right for this one - posting books for sale on craigslist is really good idea because it usually appears at the top of the search results when someone hhas listed and someone else searches a book by its name.



The ultimate solution, though, is to photocopy the book; although it is infringence of copyrights, some contries have loose laws reagrding infringence of copyrights for personal use. Check your laws and do what's best for you.

Good luck with your studies.

Answer 5

it is simple



hypothetically,

get to know someone in every class, if you dont already, and borrow their book one night and copy the important parts, then bind it in a 3ring notebook w/ the table of contents at front and the chapters u have highlighted. when i was in college a few years back i did this in the university library. u can set the copier to that wide sized paper and copy 2 pages for a page, and i bet u will end up spending about 30 bucks for 3 or more books. this may be illegal in some instances so check local laws etc etc.

Answer 6

Check with The better Business Bureau. Write your senators and congress folks. There is a Federal organization dealing with these but I don't know who they are...

Answer 7

with a big stick