No profits from bookstore buyback

By Ryan Borba & Shannon Milliken
The Collegian

With prices of tuition and gas going up, many students are choosing to buy and sell textbooks to sources other than Kennel Bookstore when book buyback starts up Dec. 12.

Amanda Killough, a junior physical therapy major, said she hardly ever buys or sells her textbooks at the campus bookstore, and instead opts for online alternatives such as half.com.

“I think it’s crap,” Killough said, adding that she saves at least $100 a semester by buying and selling textbooks online. “Selling them back online brings you closer to breaking even.”

Many students seem to think the bookstore just wants more money from them. However, according to the Kennel Bookstore’s director, Ron Durham, this isn’t true.

“A lot of students are saying ‘the bookstore’s ripping me off,’ but it’s not the bookstore’s choice,” Durham said. “We’re non-profit. If we were working for profit, I’d get a nicer house, but we don’t.”

The bookstore doesn’t actually have any part in determining the sale, resale or buyback price of textbooks, according to Durham. Prices are controlled by nationwide demand. Susan Bartel, who has been head of the bookstore’s textbook department for more than 20 years, explained how the pricing process does work.

First, the bookstore has to get professors’ orders in by the deadline so it knows what the need is for each book, Bartel said. The goal is to estimate how many students will sell back their books from the current semester, in order to fill the shelves with used books before ordering new ones.

If the bookstore can sell the old edition in the next semester, it buys it back for half of its original price, which Bartel said is standard within the industry. The bookstore gives students the same amount that the bookstore is receiving when it sells the book to the wholesale company.

“The other company determines prices and we work as a conduit,” Durham said. “There is no profit from the buyback process.” When it comes time for reselling the textbooks the following semester, the price of a used book is always 75 percent of a new book, Bartel said. Sometimes this means a surplus will be created and sometimes the bookstore will lose money.

Kennel Bookstore can’t be beaten when it comes to convenience, and other stores around town don’t always need the books Fresno State students are trying to get rid of.

According to Durham, who has also worked for the Humboldt State and UC Davis bookstores, Kennel Bookstore offers the lowest book prices in the CSU system, and has made continuous efforts to keep prices down. He also said prices compared with other stores in town are very competitive.

“The hardest part for us is the perception, of basically every college bookstore for the last 30 years, that book buyback is a rip-off,” Durham said.

Becky Morris, a junior music education major, said she knows participating in the Kennel Bookstore buyback is usually not the best deal around, but usually picks the campus bookstore out of convenience.

One of the most frustrating parts of buyback for many students is when a textbook might be used, but a professor hasn’t put in an order in time for buyback.

Durham and Bartel both said the bookstore does everything it can to encourage professors to be timely about putting in orders, and that everyone benefits when students are able to sell books back at a good rate.

“We can’t force or intimidate faculty” into being speedier, said Durham, who also said he thought book buyback was a rip-off when he was in college at Brigham Young University. “We are really at the mercy of professors.”

“We urge students to talk to professors about book buyback,” Bartel said.

Durham said the bookstore has very expensive overhead costs and requires hefty reserve funds. He estimated needed roof renovations to cost more than $100,000.

“We do operate in the black,” Bartel said. “But we’re not making a lot of money.”

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