Five mistakes to avoid when buying textbooks online

Often times people whoare trying to buy the textbooks they need for their classes, they will make a mistake.... and often times a very costly mistake. Textbooks can be expensive and places that buy books back from you often will give you a mear fraction of what you paid. You'd be lucky to find a place that will give you your money back within 30-days, but even then if you have purchased your books well in advanced (like the punctual person you are!) then you might not be able to refund all the money you just spent. Here are the most commonly made mistakes when purchasing books online:

  1. Make sure you get the right version. It's extremely common practice for textbook publishers to keep the same cover to a textbook when they change editions, so if you are purchasing a book online make sure you confirm that you are looking at the correct edition for your class... don't assume just because it looks like the right book that it is. And always remember, "don't judge a book by it's cover"
  2. Fail to use the ISBN search. Textbook stores like textbooknova.com and a few others allow users to search for their book based on the ISBN (either a 13 or a 10 digit number to uniquely identify a book). Using an ISBN search is the number one most accurate way to find your textbooks, and if you are on a website that doesn't allow you to do ISBN look-ups, don't even bother spending any more of your time (or money) on that marketplace!
  3. Fail to match the title of the textbook. Another frequently made mistake among textbook buyers is that they do not match the exact title that is required for the class. There could be a billion textbooks called "Chemistry" but if your class needs the book "Earth Chemistry" or any variation like that then you need to make sure you are looking at buying the correct book.
  4. Price shop around! Often you will be able to find the correct book, but if you fail to attempt to find your book at a few other marketplaces, you might end up spending way too much money! Make sure you do your due diligence to find the marketplace with the best price for the textbook before you buy it online. Fortunately for you, if you are searching Textbook Nova then you can rest assured that we offer some of the most competitive prices available.
  5. Buying a used copy without checking for the quality. You wouldn't believe how many times I've tried to save money by purchasing a used textbook, only to find out half way through the semester that someone had torn pages out on an important chapter. How many times have you seen someone bored in class doodling inside their book? Who even knows where that textbook has been! If you are buying used textbooks online, make absolutely sure you can check to see the quality of the used book and try to find the ones closest to new.

We hope these tips have been helpful for anyone purchasing books online, and hope you have a great semester of classes!

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