By EMILY SMURTHWAITE
emily@newsroom.byu.edu
The students who purchase textbooks over the Internet may not have to wait in long lines to buy them, but they might have to wait a couple of weeks until they arrive.
Cory Allen, 22, a junior from Great Falls, Montana, majoring in psychology, said he tried to order four books from online services, but only bought one because the others were back-ordered.
The book he ordered took two weeks to arrive and he said he saved $10.
'I was happy with the book I got, but disappointed because the other three were back-ordered. I think it is a good idea for people to break the bookstore's monopoly,' Allen said.
In the last two years, many new online sites have started selling textbooks at discounted prices, said Brent Laker, assistant director of the BYU bookstore. Ecampus.com, Varsity.com and BigWords.com are three major on-line textbook stores.
The sites boast of discounted textbooks and fast delivery. Ecampus ships for free and the other sites offer free shipping with a minimum purchase amount.
Last month, a BYU student approached Laker and said he thought he could get better textbook prices by purchasing them on the Internet. Laker said he decided to research the online prices and compare them to the bookstore's services and prices. Laker said he used the student's schedule and ordered nine books from the three on-line services.
Only one of the books came within five days, he said. The sites weren't able to fill the orders for four of his books either, Laker said.
He said the other four books were received 19?2D27 days after he ordered them.
'I know I'd flunk my classes if I had to go a month without my books,' he said.
To compensate for the tardiness of the books, Laker said he received a free insulated cup from one of the companies.
None of the on-line prices for the nine books were cheaper than the bookstore's used prices, he said. Although all of the prices online were cheaper than the new bookstores prices, Varsity and BigWords charged about five dollars for shipping, Laker said.
Laker said many of those who start on-line textbook businesses are young people who don't know the book industry, but want to jump on the Internet bandwagon.
The textbook industry is saturated with money. In the Sept. 20, 1999 edition of U.S. News & World Report, Kenneth Terrell reported students collectively spend more than $3 billion annually on textbooks.