Yardstick Report: Comparing Textbook Options

Assume you are the finance committee chairperson for Lambda Gamma Phi, a business association at your college or university. After some members bought textbooks at the campus bookstore recently, they complained about how expensive the textbooks were and how their costs were steadily rising. Some members said that because of the expense, they didn't buy some of their textbooks last semester, which
hurt their grades. Lower grades could lead to the loss of scholarships and reduced job opportunities.

The executive committee of Lambda Gamma Phi asks you to identify alternatives to buying full-priced hard-copy books at the campus bookstore. What factors are most important? The committee is most interested in the best price (including shipping charges) and availability. Even a good price is useless if the book is not readily available. Another big concern is readability.

One option for students, of course, is to continue buying books at the campus bookstore. Some instructors and students, however, are buying books for the Fleetfoot Reader. This is a proprietary hardware/ software device for reading e-books, but books play only on this device. Some publishers and bookstores are now renting books, which is a distinct possibility. Students can also buy books online, or they can download e-books as PDF files. All of these options seem like reason- able alternatives to buying full-priced hard-copy books at the campus bookstore.
For the study, you choose a representative sample of four text- books: Calculus Classics, The Basics of College Writing, Art History: The Impressionists and Beyond, and Physics Is Fun. You check the prices and availability of the books at the campus bookstore, on Web sites that specialize in renting textbooks, on Web sites that sell hard-copy books, and on Web sites that sell e-books.

You check the price of the Fleetfoot Reader as well as the prices and availability of books that play on this device. You evaluate readability by seeing how easy a textbook is to read (only a concern with e-books and the Fleetfoot Reader). Delivery times for books purchased online are immaterial because most online vendors deliver books in two business days.

Price is easily the most important criterion, so you assign it a weight of 5. You assign availability a weight of 3 and readability a weight of 1.

Average Price

At the campus bookstore, the average price of each book is $170 and the average buyback price is $40, making the average net price $130. The better the condition of the book is when you return it, the more the campus bookstore pays. The lowest price on the Fleetfoot Reader is $259 at handheldgadgets.com, and the average price of books is $10, making the average price of a book $259 / 4 + $10 = $74.75. The average price to rent the four books for one semester is $38 per book. The average price is $65 per book to buy the four books online. None of the online booksellers has a buyback option. The aver- age price of the four books as e-books is $80 per book. The following chart shows those data.

Availability

The campus bookstore has all four of the books in stock. Only one of the four books is available for the Fleetfoot Reader. A much wider selection of books for the Fleetfoot Reader is available for the mass market than for the college market. Bookrentingsite.com says it has over 2.1 million textbooks for rent and offers prepaid return shipping. Three of the four books are available on this site, which consistently offered the lowest prices on book rentals. Two online booksellers excelled in availability-reallycheap.com and savvybuyer.com.

Each had three of the four books. Smartclass.com had two of the four books as e-books. No other e-bookseller came close to its selection.

Readability

You judge all hard-copy books most readable. Formatting issues and small print on small screens, especially on iPods, make e-books the least readable. Although books on the Fleetfoot Reader are easier to read than e-books, the device is hard to use.

YourTask. Write a memo report of five or fewer pages and address it to the organization's members. Include conclusions and recommen- dations, a bar chart showing the availability of books, and a decision matrix.