Getting the Best Deal for a Textbook
I’ve been doing quite a bit of legwork weighing the pros and cons of buying new editions textbooks versus photocopying versus buying 2nd hand texts.
This is what I have found:
New Edition Textbooks
- There are three places to get cheap books: Clementi bookshop, SIM bookshop and NUS Coop. I have not looked at NTU bookshop bcos its just too darn far.
- Clementi bookshop
This is the most expensive of the cheap. But all their books come with a plastic cover if you feel its seals the deal.
Clementi bookshop has the best range and open till evenings on weekdays and open on Sat. This means that access is the best.
Parking, is not free though.
Strangely, the range of law books are very pathetic.
- SIM bookshop
This is the cheapest of all the accounting, finance and law books and has the best opening hours 9am to 7pm and the best parking rates - free!
But their books are limited to what the schools recommend, which sometimes are not the most suitable for my style.
Beware the parking though free, red lots are not for visitors and the white lots are rarer than the white tiger… and I have personally seen The Clamp being enforced.
- NUS Coop
The opening times are THE WORST 9am to 3pm and parking not free (although it is not much cheaper than the HDB ones at Clementi Bookshop).
But they have the widest variety of books. Note, if you looking for law books, ONLY the law fac bookshop has them. If you look for archi, only the archi bookshop has them.
AND, there is a student price and a price for the rest of the mofos. So, dress like a student.
- If the book you buy is popular (i.e. finance and accounting related), the chances of selling it off later is high. So buy eet!
- And if you win a book prize, the cost of the texts are defrayed. haha!
- Law books are certainly more expensive costing average $80 per book, while $60 for an accounting/finance textbook is considered expensive.
Buy a new textbook AFTER you have used it and liked it for two chapters.
2nd Hand Textbooks
- Buy from forums:
Popular textbooks like Accounting & finance textbooks can usually be bought 2nd hand from forums. They are often sold at max 30% off published rates IF they are current editions. If you get lucky (by trawling 30 pages into the marketplace forum), you may get lucky with one selling at 50% off… or use the search function. Unfortunately most forum searches are not too intelligent and don’t often give you what you want.
If not for the fact that I am not taking exams for FM this year, I would have followed through on my successfully negotiated price of $25 for a $55 FM book by BMM.
- Most guys don’t accept negotiations… unless they are desperate.
- Desperate people are people who bump and upz their ads daily.
- Some books are used by UOL and RMIT students, and so go to other threads to find desperate people.
- You must confirm that what you are going to buy is a pirated copy (photocopy) or an original textbook. Some mofos sell their pirated copy at full photocopy price.
- The most prolific places to buy/sell books is
1. HWZ textbook garage
2. Cozycot
There are other places like Spug forums and sgforums but these places are usually over-run by mofos selling ipods and handphones.
- Sometimes, if the edition you hold is STILL the current edition, you can sell it “2nd” hand… and recoup your mooneh.
- I don’t know which public accessible forum Law students buy/sell their 2nd hand books. I suspect they sell it through their NUS virtual learning forums or something, but I am not an NUS student so its not an option for me.
- A recently graduated lawyer told me that law students generally don’t sell their books cos they always need to refer.
- Textbook Exchange Portals
There are online textbook exchange websites that purportedly say they are a portal for 2nd hand books like
1. http://www.secondhandbooks.com.sg/
2. http://www.bookfishing.com.sg/
3. Lawskool.com.sg
All pale in comparison to the buy/sell exchanges on the forums. The price is not very much cheaper too. I suspect the “movement” of the books are not as fast and furious as the marketplace forums.
- Bras Basah
Oh PLEASE! Don’t get me started. The people who suggest you go there to buy 2nd hand textbooks are probably people that blindly repeat information and have never gone there to actually buy one.
The textbooks available are often two or more editions back - and who would wanna get these? AND the prices are shockingly close to what is offered on the forums for current editions.
But it IS a good place to get ACCA, CFA study guides as I saw loads of current editions but I wonder why people would wanna get them as the guides are all included in the professional certification fees.
It is also a good place to get secondary/pri sch assessment books though I suspect they are not of the latest syllabus too.
Photocopy Books
There are a few places mentioned that reportedly have cheap (3 cents and below) photocopying:
- Peace center
- Fortune center
- Sunshine Plaza
- Coronation Plaza
- Queensway Shopping Centre
- Katong Plaza or mall
I have only been to Peace center and I found that the shops offer between 3.5 cents to 4 cents. I have yet to find one that offered 3cents. And the stupid signs offering 2cents are misleading as they all mean “loose sheets, auto feed into machine”. I hate creative marketing.
The deal sealer is in the waiting time. I found a great shop that can collect 3 x 1000 page books the next day.
Oh, plastic binding costs $3.50… so its cheaper to ownself bind in office. HAHA!
Note: Print a textbook only if the original is of good quality, i.e. NO HIGHLIGHTING marks, and print if its only not more than 3.5 cents.
Textbooks & Solutions Manuals
All textbooks never give all the solutions. Some textbooks give most of the solutions, and all textbooks never give all the MOST ESSENTIAL (i.e. exam-standard questions) solutions. Solutions are usually provided for lame basic questions.
Plan to buy the workbook (or solutions manual or cleverly titled “instructors’ guidebook or students handbook blabla) rather than the textbook.
Most people don’t buy solutions manuals (how do they practise?) so its most likely you have to get it new.
posted 1 year ago
