Textbook prices continue to skyrocket; 14 percent in the past year alone. Today's average college student is forced to spend more than $1,000 per year on textbooks. Our friends at CampusGrotto used to run a great annual list of the best places to find cheap textbooks. Since they have stopped running this list we figured we would pick up where they left off.
We've run extensive tests of five of the biggest textbook price comparison sites, to see which ones provided the cheapest and most straightforward way of purchasing textbooks. We inputted some of the most common (and expensive) college textbooks out there to evaluate these popular comparison engines: Managerial Accounting (0073379611), Prebles' Artforms (013514132X), Biology with Mastering Biology (0321543254), The Developing Person Through the Life Span (071676072X), and Essentials of Sociology (0205578705).
Here are the results:
To our surprise the number one spot was taken by this website, CampusBooks.com. While margin of victory was slim, CampusBooks.com edged out the competition by a few dollars on every book. The landing page of the site is clean and simple. CampusBooks.com provides the option to Buy, Sell, Or Rent books, showing both the cost of renting and buying, side by side in their price comparison engine. Even though the overall layout of the CampusBooks.com price comparison engine may not be as aesthetically pleasing as others, it works, and will save you money.
Performance (Book/Price): Managerial Accounting/19.99**, Prebles' Artforms/23.00*, The Developing Person Through the Life Span/ 29.23*, Essentials of Sociology/24.00*, Biology with Mastering Biology/10.98**
*Lowest Price Found (**Tied for Lowest)
Bigwords is perhaps the most popular of all price comparison sites, and was the frontrunner in my mind before setting out on our mission. However the site slipped to number two when I noticed a few minor things that made saving the most money and getting the right product a little more confusing than need be. Bigwords does a good job of showing prices from a large variety of stores, however does not show the lowest price on the initial search page. Instead, you have to find it by using a drop down menu, which can be confusing. Also when comparing prices over the companies I found that BigWords product descriptions were lacking and often times did not explain things like if a book was an international edition or in poor condition.
Performance (Book/Price): Managerial Accounting/19.99** , Prebles' Artforms/58.11, The Developing Person Through the Life Span/46.97 , Essentials of Sociology/40.99, Biology with Mastering Biology/43.48
This site has all the features but looks like something created by a 7th grader in his garage. I am not sure when I am looking at ads or book prices on DealOZ.com. For the most part it incorporates all the sellers and buyers of new and used textbooks, but the price list isn't even sorted by price to begin with, which can be confusing. For the most part this site delivers the correct information, but takes a few extra seconds to find it. The lag is considerable, which can be annoying when searching for a semesters worth of books in one sitting. Additionally, this site lacks the "book bag" feature that the first two have.
Performance (Book/Price): Managerial Accounting/19.99** , Prebles' Artforms/23.00*, The Developing Person Through the Life Span/ 29.23, Essentials of Sociology/36.55, Biology with Mastering Biology/10.98**
Coming in at number three is Allbookstores.com. Its main set back is the redundancy of their format. You are forced to click several buttons before you are even shown a price comparison list of your books. The second major downfall of this site pushing it lower on the list is that it lacks a "sell" option, making this site significantly less useful than CampusBooks.com, Big Words, or even DealOZ.
Performance (Book/Price): Managerial Accounting/19.99**, Prebles' Artforms/39.14, The Developing Person Through the Life Span/47.24 , Essentials of Sociology/39.00, Biology with Mastering Biology/10.99
This site has a great appearance but unfortunately does not cut it where it counts. The price comparisons on this site consistently produced much higher prices than its competitors. I was hoping this site would perform well based on the initial appearance and ease of use (it had minimal lag), but unless you enjoy spending a lot on your textbooks, this isn't your best bet. Finally, this site, like Allbookstores.com lacks a selling option.
Performance (Book/Price): Managerial Accounting/92.99, Prebles' Artforms/50.00, The Developing Person Through the Life Span/67.99, Essentials of Sociology/33.00, Biology with Mastering Biology/39.99
Overall Campusbooks.com swept the competition. They have all the features that some of the others lack, and they pull from what seems to be the largest collection of sellers, renters and buyers. Simplicity and value are the key components that these sites have to offer and Campusbooks tops this list, even though some of these competitors are close behind. I recommend that all students check one of these sites before purchasing a book at retail or even used off the shelves in your campus book store. You will save yourself a lot of money at the beginning of the semester by making sure you have the best buy. You can also make a lot of extra money at the end of the semester if you check out the highest bidders on your books once you have absorbed all the knowledge and Aced your class!
