Textbook Buying and Selling Tips

Buying and selling textbooks on Halfvalue.com is quick, easy, and fun! Here are a few helpful tips that will help you buy (or sell) the right book at a great price.

When Buying...

• Your professor will often choose a particular edition or year of a textbook to teach for class. To make sure the book you are buying on halfvalue.com is the same one your professor requires, compare the ISBN (a number on the back or first page of every textbook) of your book with the ISBN on halfvalue.com. If the ISBNs match, you can be assured you have ordered the correct book.
• Be on the look out for old editions! Old editions of a textbook are offered on halfvalue.com at a substantial discount. When you find the textbook you are looking for, click "see other editions" to find out if there are older versions offered at better prices. Just make sure your professor doesn't have a problem with purchasing a different edition than the one required from the course--an older edition may have different exercises or may be missing chapters. If you are in doubt, purchase the correct edition and you'll still save a lot of money!
• If you need your book in a hurry, be sure to choose "Expedited Mail" as the method of shipment. The default method, Media Mail, should arrive in 4-12 days from the time of shipping. However, in some rare instances Media Mail shipments can take as long as 30 days to arrive.

When Selling...

• Always use the sell your item page to list a book by its ISBN. That will guarantee you are listing the book in the correct place.
• List your textbooks at a competitive price. If you have a brand new textbook in a popular course, you can often sell it on Halfvalue.com for a few dollars less than the list price! Of course, if many other members have listed the same book, you'll probably want to set your asking price at or near the lowest price offered.
• You can sell textbooks any time of the year, but make sure to have all your books listed during August, September, January, and February. These are the months when textbooks sell fastest and at the highest prices.