Where to Find the Cheapest Textbooks Online

College is notorious for stretching the boundaries of parental cash flow to the max. The ridiculous cost of food (a small carton of eggs topping a whopping six dollars!) and dorm prices that rival year-long stays at upscale hotels - without the personal bathrooms - all add up to the hundreds of thousands that will be paid. One of the most notorious means, however, is by way of textbook purchases. These costs can be so expensive that many scholarships are given by foundations to ease the burden that these numbers can bare on students. For those not fortunate enough to receive such a gift, however, the prices can weigh down hard.

Before grabbing the over-priced books from campus shelves, first try consulting a widely-popular shopping utility - a little something we like to call the "Internet." With the options available there, no reason can completely justify spending the exorbitant prices we have become accustomed to at our universities. Discounts can range anywhere from ten to eighty percent!

But with so many choices in sites available, where does one begin?

For the first place to search, I would recommend browsing Textbooks.com. With over 7 million choices in textbooks alone, they far exceed the amount of inventory many of the other sites are claiming to put out. The site itself isn't as fancy-shmancy as other sites such as Barnes & Nobles, but the prices speak for themselves.

Take our sample textbook, Financial Reporting & Analysis: Using Financial Accounting Info, by Charles H. Gibson (ISBN No.: 9780324657425). On Textbooks.com, the brand-spanking new price is $178.50, an almost $30 dollar discount from what you would be paying at your university. Estimating a rough $30-50 dollar discount for all ten of your semester textbooks, you could be saving big. Purchase a used book, and your discounts further add up.

The awesome thing about purchasing from Textbooks.com is that all of their used books are always in very good quality, whereas at other sites you have to really rely on whether or not the book will be damaged beyond reasonable use. A used textbook cannot be sold on the site unless they are free from stains and water damage, missing pages or torn covers, excessive writing and marking, a broken spine/binding, or any other significant damage. Most other textbook sites do not hold their used items up to such stringent standards.

Another thing to keep in mind with Textbooks.com is that they have a Guaranteed Buyback Policy for several of their brand-new items. In our Gibson textbook example, the guaranteed buyback price is $89.25 - far more than I would bet your university would grant you. Books purchased between June 1^st and November 30^th of any given year must be returned at semester's end (deemed reasonably December 31^st by the site), and any books purchased between December 1^st and May 3^rd must be returned prior to June 30^th. Upon receipt, they will mail you a nice new check. (Selling your own textbooks not purchased on the site is simple too - they will quote you based on ISBN number instantly and print you out a free shipping label).

Other sites can be useful as well, but keep in mind sometimes steep discounts mean poor quality. Half.com is a site many college students use as of late, but their prices for new books tend to be more expensive than you could find elsewhere. With our Gibson example, the book on Half.com costs $189.99 - a good eleven dollars more than on Textbooks.com. Of course, this is just one example, but the discounts are noticeable. Type in a few of your own books for this semester in both and see which new cost is lower. The majority of the time I would bet Textbooks.com.

However, when it comes to used book prices, Half.com does have the former beat. Half.com is structured like Ebay though (same site essentially), and you never really know what you are going to "get". Books are classified based on their condition (if the seller is indeed telling the truth). You can find our Gibson example for a nicely-discounted $95 dollars - but it is the international version and is actually not completely legal to sell in the United States. For those of you familiar with the Ebay look and buying on the site, Half.com might be a good option for you as you are more than likely accustomed to skimming for scams and discrepancies.

Another option commonly used is Amazon.com. I can say from experience that their shipping is pretty decent and you can purchase our Gibson example new for $166.36 - the cheapest of the previous two sites. Selling is very easy to do with this site and you are able to sell for the amount YOU want to sell for, however from a buyer's perspective they have fewer textbook options to choose from.

When you want to compare cheapest prices to cheapest prices, Bigwords.com could be a useful comparison tool. They seek out the cheapest books listed from all major textbook retailers and spew out the answers for you. Buyer beware, however: Many of the cheapest options are marked, torn, pulled apart and glued back together. Some of these books truly have seen the worst of conditions.

I wouldn't bother looking at Barnes & Nobles - their textbook prices are way too steep, and your options are few and far between. You might as well grab them off of the university book store!

With the many great options for cheaper prices available, though, there really is no excuse to pay the absurd prices your campus imposes. You might just save yourself $300 bucks this semester - extra money in your parents' (as well as your own) pockets.