Student Stores renting 430 percent more textbooks as buyback participation falls

During Student Stores’ first semester under Barnes & Noble College management, students rented 430 percent more textbooks while participation in the Student Stores’ textbook buyback program fell.

“As expected, buyback participation was lower this past fall than previous semesters, the change was expected with the introduction of the robust rental program offered this past fall semester by the UNC Student Stores,” Student Stores Manager Michele Gretch Carter said in an email.

Gretch Carter said in fall 2016, about 45 percent more students used textbook rental than textbook buyback — something that contributed to total savings of $1.1 million dollars for students in the fall, she said. Allison Reid, executive director of marketing and communications in the UNC Division of Finance and Administration, said during the fall 2015 textbook buyback period, students received $345,233.91 for their textbooks. In the spring 2015 semester, this figure was $335,843.29.

Some students, instead, use means outside the stores to save money on their textbooks.

Junior computer science major Ashish Khanchandani said he spent a lot of money on textbooks at Student Stores and through sites like Amazon his first semester at UNC. He said he has been using Facebook to purchase and sell textbooks since then.

“Honestly ... certain people don’t like spamming Facebook groups and I honestly could care less what people think of me so I just post them on as many as possible,” Khanchandani said.

Khanchandani said when using Facebook to buy books, he gives up some quality of the book in order to get it at a better price.

“At Student Stores, okay, you’re getting a new book but it’s at an exorbitantly large price, but over Facebook I’ve seen that you can still get a relatively new book and for me the condition of the book doesn’t really matter as much as the book itself and you’re getting it at a significantly lower price than what the new one would be at the Student Stores,” Khanchandani said.

Gretch Carter she could not speak about how the stores’ textbook buyback system worked before Barnes & Noble College began managing the stores in July 2016.

According to the Barnes and Noble College contract with the University, during buyback periods, new and used books being used for the next semester can’t be bought back for less than 50 percent of their selling price. If the book is not being used for the next semester, it must be bought back at the wholesale price.

Senior psychology and linguistics major Emily Troxell said she bought textbooks from Student Stores her first year but now usually rents her textbooks from Amazon. She said when she sold her textbooks back to the stores her first year, she thinks she received less than half of what she bought them for.

First-year history and political science major Julia Herring said she tried to sell her French books back to Student Stores but decided not to when she found out how much they would be bought back for. She said the store employees didn’t tell her if her books were being used for the next semester.

“I bought each of them, I would say, at at least a three or four dollar price and they wanted like 25 cents back for each one. And some of them I bought for $8 and they still wanted 25 cents back,” Herring said.

“I also tried to sell back a ... history book, it’s a continent book and they wanted to buy that back for like 50 cents. That was probably 12, 13 dollars.”

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