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We all know a good college education doesn't come cheap these days, and that includes the price of textbooks. To help make textbooks more affordable, we work hard to stock as many reduced price used books as possible. Where do we get these used copies? Mainly from college students just like you who no longer need their books. Buying back used books benefits students in two ways: students get money for books they don't want any more and they are assured an ample supply of used books for the next term.
We buy back books all year round—best prices are paid near the end of the semester and during finals week. Oh, and don't be fooled by imitators, Spartan Bookstore pays cash money for books.
Please bring your books to the customer service window outside the lower level of the bookstore. Unfortunately, we cannot quote buyback prices over the internet or the phone due to fluctuations in market price and the need to grade the book visually.
We pay half of the selling price for books that are re-adopted for use at SJSU. We buy at half price until we meet our pre-established buyback quantity. We establish our buyback quantity based upon the enrollment of the class; the number of books we have bought in the past; our current inventory of unsold books from last semester, and the number of books in circulation.
The buyback quantity will not exceed the number of textbooks we expect to sell the next semester. This type of buyback is based upon the books ISBN, so if your professor is using a shrink-wrapped book bundle/package with consumable components, then you may not receive 50% of the books price. In most of these cases your professor has asked us not to carry just the textbook, but wants the package.
Books that are not being re-used at SJSU are bought based upon prices set by a leading national wholesale company. These prices are typically 0-30% of the new price. The zero occurs for books that are changing editions or going out of print. The actual price is determined by supply and demand at the wholesaler's warehouse and is a factor of how many universities and students nationwide are using the book and the current stock levels for the wholesaler. In essence, Spartan Bookstore is buying books from SJSU students as an agent of the wholesalers. Wholesalers, in turn, sell the same books to bookstores in other parts of the country. Other bookstores sell to students at other universities. As you can see each entity in the chain needs to add a margin to the books to enable the process. That's why it is to the advantage of the student for faculty to turn in book orders on time. If a book is being re-used at SJSU—you cut two companies out of the equation and the student gets a much better price at buyback.
After Finals Week, we typically order books from publishers that we were unable to buy from students during book buyback. As soon as these orders are placed the buyback value of most SJSU books revert to the wholesalers price as explained in the above paragraph.
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