Online book-buying getting more popular for students

The University Times CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- (U-WIRE) Long lines, empty shelves and high prices seem to be prompting more students to get connected with on-line textbook vendors. The Student Monitor, which conducts nationally syndicated studies of college students, estimates that up to 50 percent of college students will buy their books online in the next year. Adrian Sisser, a cofounder of AnyStudent.com, said that the appeal of buying textbooks online is mostly due to convenience. "Often times, you have situations where the campus bookstore will be overcrowded at the beginning of a semester with everyone trying to buy their books," said Sisser. "Sometimes the textbooks students are looking for are no longer in stock, and it would take the store around six weeks to get the first shipments." The ease of point-and-click shopping has started to spread across UNC Charlotte. "Looking on the Internet for books, I don't feel the same amount of stress I have as if I were to go into the bookstore and hunt through all the volumes," said sophomore Chuck Rhine. Buying over the Internet can be especially beneficial to out-of-state students, as it was for freshman Katherine dePrater. According to dePrater, "It gives me the chance to buy my books at home without having to cut my vacation time short and come back to campus early just to beat the lines at Gray's [Bookstore] and the campus bookstore." To help students in the navigation of the fast-developing Internet vendors, Anystudent.com offers students a textbook comparison guide. The site, since its August 15 launching, has allowed students to compare information about textbooks concerning price, taxes and shipping rates from various online vendors. "You no longer have to go into an individual site and go through their search procedure trying to find that one book only to come up empty. The process is already done for the student at our site," said Sisser. Along with convenience, cost is a factor in determining where students turn to buy their textbooks. According to the National Association of College Stores, of the 14.9 million college students nationwide, each spends an average of $275 on textbooks per school semester. "The cost of shopping online really is cheaper than your average college bookstore," said Sisser. Some students, however, have not made the transition to online shopping. Freshman Peggy Chan said, "I have been interested in using the Internet to buy my books, but I don't know how any of it works."