Every year students shell out hundreds of dollars for textbooks, and sometimes finding the best deal can be a hassle.
Theo Lawson | Argonaut
Students and their families purchase texbooks at the VandalStore. The VandalStore now offers textbook price comparison on their website and in the store.
This year the University of Idaho VandalStore is trying to make the process a little simpler with the release of a price comparison tool at the online store.
This new tool provides UI students with the new, used and rental choices that are available for a textbook at the VandalStore, and offers the price comparison with other online retailers and the link to purchase the book from that retailer if the student chooses to do so, said Vandal Store Marketing Manager, Patty Carscallen.
The price comparison tool can be accessed when a student is on Vandalstore.com as well as when they are looking at their class schedule on Vandal Web and have their textbooks matched to their classes through Textbook Express.
“A few years ago we started getting very competitive with the pricing of textbooks,” John Bales, VandalStore director of operations said. “This tool came along about two years ago when I was introduced to it. We were going through a reorganization at the time so we decided to wait a little while to introduce it.”
Bales said that this tool provides transparency to students so that they are able to see what the Vandal Store prices are compared to other resources out there.
Incoming freshmen Austin Hendren and Shelby Howard both agreed that this tool will be useful to them as college students.
“I think this a really useful tool for students just to see the prices and to see where we could get them cheaper. It really helps to save money,” Hendren said.
Bales said the main goal of the store is to provide students with the tools for success.
“One of our main goals is student success but we still want to deliver value into that proposition. If we’re saving you all a few dollars, great, if we’re showing you where you can get a better deal, fantastic,” Bales said. “We want you all to get the best deal you can possibly find. So if there is a screaming deal out there online we fully support that. Go grab those books.”
Bales said that it is an age old myth that the textbooks at the bookstore are always more expensive than textbooks online and this tool lets the Vandal Store demonstrate that that’s not always the case.
“Frankly, what benefits the students benefits the University of Idaho,” Bales said. “It is an important thing to remember that dollars spent here at the bookstore stay here at the University of Idaho and dollars spent at other retailers go elsewhere.”
Carscallen said that the convenience of buying your books at the VandalStore is that you obtain your books quicker instead of having to wait for them to arrive in the mail.
“As college students, we want to save as much money as we can and this is another way we can,” Howard said.
Iris Alatorre can be reached at [email protected]
