Best bet for purchasing text books?

Have you considered international editions? Sometimes they vary minutely, but usually they’re the same thing with a different cover and without the glossy color – and the price can be 75% lower. I used to get them dirt cheap that way. One good source was AbeBooks, though Google Shopping also tended to find me good deals.

School rental usually seemed to only cut 50% off the price of a book.

I, my wife, and two friends have had good luck with Amazon.com and AbeBooks.com as with all used books you just have to be a little careful when you’re looking for particular editions, but if memory serves only one out of the last six or seven we bought had an issue. Next to those the local college exchange can be pretty helpful not only in supplying but also recommending reliable sources. I’ve also heard good things, but have not yet used Textbooks.com.

I always used Amazon.com. If you start an Amazon Student account, you get discounts on a whole bunch of school supplies and you’ll also get free Amazon Prime for about six months. It’s really worth it. The prime gives you free two day shipping. If you know the ISBN for the text books you need, you can easily search for them on the website.

Another option is using Ebay.com.

Just make sure that you’re getting the right edition of the textbook you need. On Amazon, there are a lot of textbooks that come in an international edition. It’s the same textbook, but the page numbers will be different. Also, the international editions only come in paperback. They’re less than half the price of the hardbacks.

I hope this helped you. =]

Craigslist?

My dad sells text books on Amazon.com.

I just graduated college not long ago and I ordered all my books on Amazon.com and Half.com (Ebay’s book store). I like Amazon.com the most because of how easy it is to sell your books back to them when the courses are complete.