The Textbook Sale/Resale Business

As all of us students have found out since our attendance at the University, there is a large scam that goes on in the area of textbook sale and resale, etc.  There is a long cycle that a given textbook goes through, and it is filled with many variables.  There is a definite supply and demand for each textbook that changes over time.  We, as students, find out pretty quickly what the supply and demand curves look like for a book we need by going online and checking what kind of prices we can find the book for, as well as how many places we can find that have the book available.  

The beginning of a books journey begins when it first enters the market in new condition.  In some cases, when a book has just been released, the University Bookstore holds a monopoly over the sale of that book.  The bookstore, like any other business-minded company, makes sure that there is a limited supply of the book in stock and charges ridiculously high prices to make a maximum profit.  Since the demand for this book needs to be met, the consumers have nowhere else to buy the book and the Bookstore makes a killing.

However, there are ways in which the market for the book changes.  For example, there could be close substitutes for this book such as a used version of the book or an older edition.  The demand curve for the original new book is then shifted to the left and less books would be demanded at the same high price that the Bookstore was charging.  Thanks to this, we often have a chance to search the internet to look for a substitute that would function just as well as the new book, but cost less.  

Eventually, the new books that are sold in a given time period are used for a while and then become of little to no value to the owner.  Also, the close substitutes for the book (used books) are of no value to their owners.  So everything is basically bumped down a notch; the new books are worth what the used books were worth and the used books become worth even less.  

This is a veritably endless cycle that is an integrated part of student life.  As in any market, there are both buyers and sellers that will make out well and others that will get shafted in the sales for a given quarter.  It is an interesting market to examine, and one could think about the subject for hours and just find him or herself going in circles since almost every book goes on a very similar journey.  There are evident factors that change the supply and demand curves for the books in its various stages and it's fun to be able to connect what we have learned in our Econ 200 class to our college life.