
Time to get RID of these fuckers!
Selling back your textbooks can suck. If you haven’t done the rental thing from places like Chegg, then you don’t have an easy-to-print UPS sticker waiting for you online, and you’re trying to get those black holes sold. Here are the three most common methods of getting back nowhere near as much as you paid in:
SkidShop is super convenient and keeps the books within the campus, which means they can offer more, cheaper used books to shoppers next semester. Good for future generations, bad for wallets – it’s like, don’t even offer me $3.00 for a book that I bought for $49.99, how twisted are you?
BellTower is a Cornell thing where they promise to buy back almost every book in almost any condition, and the Skidmore student reps roam around like little gypsy librarians with leather pouches of money, which is cute. I’ve made some good money from them in the past, but it’s not like the whole thing is a slam dunk – SkidShop prices can be competitive. You can find fliers with BellTower contact info around campus.
Skrounge.com – a homegrown Skidmore operation! – is also offering textbook buybacks. It’s a P2P sort of marketplace and takes a bit more work on your part (i.e. get an account if you don’t have one already, type up a little info, maybe upload a picture), but you can probably get a lot more for it because the middleman doesn’t take so much. In a best case scenario, you get paid more than what the big guys would pay you, and the buyer gets it for less than they would at a store. You just gotta hustle it.
A few things to keep in mind: the SkidShop threw down hard last week at the Fashion Show and provided good, free food on many a hectic Wednesday night. Just saying, maybe there’s something to paying it forward. Also, you can get your books appraised at the SkidShop, sell what makes sense, and keep the ones with insultingly low offers to try at BellTower or Skrounge or start a bonfire with.
So, convenience or price? Loyalty or cash? I smartened up and didn’t buy any books this year, so I’m not even touching this thing. Good luck making the best moral and fiscal choice, and get some booze money for break.