What is the bookstore doing about students concerns about prices?
Because we interact with students face-to-face, no group is more aware of students’ concerns about the cost of textbooks than the bookstore staff. Most of us agree that the important issue is value, not price. However, the staff knows that it is the perception of price they must address today; changing students’ perception of the value of their textbooks is a more difficult and longer process. Making used books available is the single most significant way the bookstore can reduce students’ textbook costs. We estimate that, through the sale of used books, our staff has saved college students more than one million dollars in the past ten years. This has been at significant cost, since used books are more expensive for the bookstore to buy and sell than new books. Unfortunately, our bookstore hasn’t done a very gook job in promoting this fact to our customers.
