Buying Used Online

Hopefully many people are familiar with buying items online through websites such as Half.com, Amazon and E-Bay. Used book sales are a huge part of this trend. All of these sites, and others offer used books from private sellers at a fraction of what you would pay at the bookstore for a new book. Many school systems in this country are requiring their students to locate and purchase their own books, not to mention the thousands of home schooled children in the U.S. Buying used books online is often the only way for these families to get the materials their children need. This is evident by the large increase in our online sales at the beginning of the school year. We also sell quite a few at the beginning of the spring semester as well.

For those of you who are not familiar with buying used online, here is a brief overview. First, make sure you have the title, author's name, date published, publisher and the ISBN of the book you are looking for. The ISBN is a set of numbers, usually ten digits long, that identifies that specific edition of that specific book. It's kind of like a social security number for a book. It is located on the back of the book above the bar code, and on the back of the title page. For example the ISBN number for Prentice Hall Biology 2002 is 013050730x. If there were 10,000 Prentice Hall Biology books printed in 2002, they would all have that same ISBN. The next edition printed in 2003 would have a different ISBN. Teacher's editions and state editions also have different ISBNs. It is much easier to search for a book with the ISBN number. If you try just searching Prentice Hall Biology on Amazon you would get three+ pages of matching books. If you do not have the book's ISBN, make sure you have the author's name and the year the book was published. Often one book by the same author is printed several times in several editions. Make sure the year is correct so your student or child doesn't run into problems where his page numbers don't quite match up or the math problems are a little different.

It's better to Google search for websites to buy used books, rather than Google the actual book. If you do this, your top hits will probably be for the publishing company. Once you have chosen a site to buy from, it's a simple process to find the book. Most websites have a basic book search engine where you can enter the title or ISBN. If you have the ISBN you will almost always be directed to the correct book. If you do not have the ISBN, sreach by Title and author then go through the list and find the correct year. Once you have found the correct book, you can then look through the sellers and choose the quality of book you would like to purchase. Book qualities on most websites are New, Like New, Very Good, Good and Acceptable. Once you have found the quality you like at a price you are willing to pay, check the feedback of the person who is selling the book. Sites like Amazon, E-bay and Half.com use feedback as a way to rate sellers and buyers and to make sure they are abiding by the websites standards. Make sure they don't have a lot of negative feedback. Also keep an eye out for feedback that involves issues with shipping or refunds. You don't want to order a book from a seller that is slow with shipping or refunds. Most websites have a standard amount of time in which a seller has to ship an item.

After you have done all this, you can now buy your book. This usually involves entering your information and a credit card to pay with. If you already have an account with that website, that information will already be there. Choose a shipping method, usually standard or expedited. Standard mail is usually United States Post Office (USPS) media mail and expedited is usually USPS priority mail. Many sellers choose to ship with other carriers, but most use basic USPS shipping. When you order remember: media mail can take up to 14 business days to arrive and priority up to 4. Before you order make sure you know exactly how long you have until you will need your book and choose a shipping method accordingly. Many times customers choose media mail and don't realize how long it can actually take. This also becomes an issue if you live far from the seller you are buying from. If you live in California and order from us in Georgia, you can guarantee it will take those 14 business days. Keep all this in mind when ordering.

Suggested sites: Amazon, Half.com, E-Bay, Campusbooks.com, Alibris, eCampus.com. Some of these sell both lower grades and college texts and some focus only on college texts.

Our company also sells used textbooks online. Unfortunately we can not always sell under Southeastern Textbooks, but we always let our customers know who they are ordering from.
www.southeastertextbooks.com
866-872-6657
fax: 866-952-6657
k12@southeasterntextbooks.com