Alternatives emerge for selling back used books

Over a four-day period last May, Carlos Roque ’10 trekked across campus from “Scully, to Bloomberg, then all the way to Holder,” collecting more than $15,000 worth of textbooks. Roque wasn’t hoping to start a library, but rather to make some cash.

Roque, a buyer for third-party vendor Belltower Books, made $1,000 last spring by purchasing students’ used textbooks with money provided by Belltower and then shipping them to the distributor.

Along with the USG’s Princeton Textbook Exchange website (PTX), Belltower is one of the agencies challenging Labyrinth Books’ control over the market for used books on campus. Such alternatives to the bookstore’s buyback policies have recently become more popular. Roque estimated that 11 Princeton students work for Belltower this year, up from two students last year.

Jon Hibler ’12, the other Princeton student who sold books to Belltower last year, said that the company makes buyers’ jobs easy by setting prices. Buyers simply scan books’ barcodes with electronic devices from Belltower and price the books according to the company’s database.

Roque said that convincing students to sell him their textbooks was easy because of Belltower’s competitive prices and his pick-up service.

“I contacted my eating club and my team, and after that, it was kind of word of mouth saying that you don’t have to leave your room, that we pay you better,” he explained.

But Roque added that his work was tiring.

“It was probably from eight in the morning to nine at night, and I would have appointments all throughout the day,” he said. “I would do all the leg work, go all the way from the bottom of campus to the top of campus, getting books and paying immediately with cash, then leaving.”

PTX, an alternative to the TigerTrade application on Point, is another option for students seeking a better value for their used textbooks.

Shortly after its launch last September, PTX listed 967 transactions and 1,760 textbook offers. Those numbers have since risen to 1,535 transactions and 3,578 total offers, Hao Lian ’11, the USG web application development chair, said in an e-mail.

“The only goal we have is for students to find it useful, and the usage statistics combined with anecdotal evidence indicate that we are succeeding,” USG president and former IT chair Michael Yaroshefsky ’12 said in an e-mail.

The USG is currently working to improve the site’s functionality with such features as a cancellation button, Yaroshefsky added.

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Students voiced mixed thoughts about the convenience of buying and selling through PTX.

Flora Massah ’13, who bought and then sold her textbook for COS 126: General Computer Science through PTX, called the site “limited.”

“This semester, I couldn’t find any of my other books on PTX because those classes weren’t as big,” she explained, adding that well over 100 students were enrolled in COS 126 last semester.

Kaya Ten-Pow ’13, who purchased books through both Labyrinth and PTX, said she thinks the USG website offers a better option. Pow said she “got a huge discount” by purchasing her textbook for PSY 101: Introduction to Psychology through PTX and said that her book “was perfectly fine.”

Students said they believed increased traffic on PTX could be a strong possibility in the future.

“It seemed easier to me ... because you can just individually pick up the book,” Massah said of the site’s convenience. “Maybe in the years to come, with more people using it, [PTX] might be a better way of buying books.”