Best Ways To Buy College Textbooks On A Budget

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The Best Sites To Buy New, Used and Cheap College Textbooks Online

The smart college student doesn’t want to go broke buying expensive textbooks. He knows that textbooks are a necessity, one of the more expensive ones in college.

Today, the student has an advantage though, he is not stuck buying textbooks from only a few sources.

There are options to shop for and to compare college textbooks prices online and students are getting creative.

If you’re a college student and are shopping for books on a budget, there are steps you can take to make the most of your money.

Compare textbooks prices, shop for used college textbooks, digital textbooks and even try to find free college textbooks if available.

Whether you are looking for Computer learning, Medical, Business, Law, Mathematics, Economics or Psychology textbooks, you can save some money by doing some internet scouting.

All you need is the textbook ISBN number or the title, edition and author to quickly find it online and compare prices among bookstores.

The easiest way to locate your textbook online is using the ISBN.

The college textbook ISBN code is a 10 to 13 number codes that identify a book’s edition and it’s a unique identifier for that book.

You can find the code in the back of the book, copyright page or bar code. If you don’t have the ISBN, just use the book’s title and edition to find the best price.

Money Saving Related Content for College Students

Best Ways to buy college textbooks on a budget

Use the Textbooks Search Engines to Find the Best Price. Here are 3 price comparison engines to find college textbooks.

BookFinder

An engine to look up all kinds of books, including textbooks.

You can save time and money by first loading your college textbook on BookFinder.com.

This is a powerful engine that scans millions of online bookstores, including Amazon, to find the best priced textbook. Just enter the book’s ISBN or title and author and the engine will search for it.

Once you locate the book on BookFinder, you can buy it directly from the more competitive seller.

Bigwords

This is an engine that allows you to compare college textbook prices from multiple sources. Bigwords also offers coupons and promotions you can apply towards your textbook purchases.

Once you find the book, you can buy from the seller.

AllBookstores

This is another book engine that compares bookstores prices from the likes of Amazon and ECampus. At AllBookstores price comparison is done on new and used textbooks.

Best Places to Buy College Textbooks on a Budget

Amazon Textbooks

Amazon is one of the largest seller of books, including new and used college textbooks. Most college subject books such as Chemistry, Technology, Art and Biology are found on the platform. You can get fast delivery if you’re a Prime member within 2 days, sometimes the next day.

With Amazon students have the options of buying or renting their textbooks.

Chegg

Chegg lets you buy or rent college textbooks. The platform has a large selection of etextbooks, which are generally cheaper than hard copy.

The engine will show you both the physical and digital prices of books. Chegg claims you can save up to 90% on your college books.

Another option with this platform is the textbooks buyback program. Chegg will back your books so that you can keep some of the money.

Redshelf

This online platform for college textbooks is known for digital versions. Redshelf claims an 80% savings when you buy their electronic books.

You can make other tools part of your study experience in this site. Study aids like flashcards, study guides and annotations are available in the platform.

Textbooks.com

This is an easy to use very straightforward engine to buy college textbooks. Students can buy new and used (hand inspected) and also etextbooks.

The Textbook platform offers free shipping for purchases over $25 and will buy your book at the end of the semester.

More Ways to Save Money on Textbooks

Buy the electronic version or PDF format of your textbook – Digital copies when available are cheaper than hard copy textbooks.
Search for free college textbooks – Many books are available for free, specially the older versions. Places you can check include The Open Textbook Library, PDF Drive and Library Genesis.
Try your college library

Final Thoughts

College textbooks can get pricey, but you don’t have to panic. The first thing to do is to get all the information for the required books like title, author, edition or ISBN. Next, do comparison shopping using one or more of the comparison engines.

Find out if new, used, digital or PDF formats are allowed by your professor or school. Many schools are allowing etextbooks, which make it a much cheaper option for students.

Look for ways to save on digital copies and promotions or coupons to use during checkout. While online college textbook platforms are probably your best bet for cheaper pricing, also try the college bookstore.