College textbooks are almost unaffordable even if you manage to obtain scholarships or tuition waivers. For students who scrimp and save to pay tuition and rent, buying dozens of textbooks at the start of the semester seems an almost impossible undertaking. Mark J. Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, estimates that textbook prices have risen faster than healthcare costs from 1978 to 2009! While there is not much you can do to reduce tuition and accommodation costs, you can look for an online college textbook that is available at a much lower price than what you find at bookstores.

So here we have the first reason for buying online college textbook – price. There are many reasons why online sellers can afford to sell these books at competitive prices. First, these books are often sourced from suppliers who were clearing stocks and needed to get rid of their inventory fast. Often, publishers offer promotional copies of books at reduced or no cost to professionals such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, which often end up with these online retailers. Sometimes, libraries that want to get rid of old stock donate or sell their inventory to sellers of used books. Books that are in a reasonably good condition (often, you cannot detect that the book is secondhand unless the seller mentions it) but carry the "used" tag are sold at a fraction of their original cost.

Second, you find much more variety at online stores. At a regular bookstore, you will not always find the book you want, particularly if it is a limited edition print. Online, you can surf multiple bookstores until you find the required product. You can even compare various editions or the same edition sold by different retailers. This further boosts your chances of finding a cheap online college textbook, apart from letting you compare books by edition. You can browse the section listing similar products and pick up a few more textbooks in the process.

Third, the entire buying process takes no more than 15-20 minutes. Once you have found an online college textbook you like, all you need to do is use your credit card or sites such as PayPal to pay for the product. You don’t have to drive down to the bookstore. The textbook is shipped to the address you provide.

Fourth, you can cancel your order before the product is shipped to you if you find a better bargain somewhere else. However, cancellation is not possible at all times, so you need to read the terms and conditions of the retailer BEFORE you place an order. Some bookstores are strictly against cancellations and penalize it. Others have a more flexible policy and don’t charge anything for cancellations as long as you place your request before the product is shipped.

Finally, you can sell the online college textbook back to the seller once the semester is over. This enables you to make purchases for the next semester and also clears up the clutter on your study table.

If your semester is about to begin, hurry and purchase the books you need for the course at knocked-off prices. There are so many advantages to buying textbooks online that it is a wonder that more students are not going for this option.