Why buy textbooks when they can be rented? A new company based out of New York City is asking college students that question. “Some students say they can buy books and sell them back, but it is hard to get bookstores to take books back for even close to what you paid for them,” said Aayush Phumbrha, co-founder of Chegg.
Chegg, a company launched in August 2006, rents books to students to prevent them from spending extensive amounts of money.
“We wanted to do something in the textbook area to help students to save money,” Phumbrha said. “We got about seven or eight times the numbers than we expected and on average, close to 70 or 80 percent of students say they save by renting.”
The company mainly focuses on renting books to students, but its long-term goal is to help the environment.
“We figured there are so many books bought each year that rentals will save the environment, but we have a lot of catch up to do, so we plant a tree for each book rented,” Phumbrha said.
Chegg also tries to make its business as simple as it can be for the students.
“We provide a pre-paid label for them [the students] to return books at the end of the semesters,” Phumbrha said. “We have student-friendly policies. We have extensions available if a student realizes they need the book longer than they expected.”
However, students will have to rent the books first before purchasing them. If a student drops a class after already renting the book, they can return it and get a full refund.
Freshman poultry science major Heather Little said she thinks Chegg is going to be a very successful company once it becomes more well-known.
“I would much rather rent my books for a fraction of the cost than spend all that money and hardly get anymore back when I sell them back to the bookstore,” she said.
Bobby Hamous, manager of Barnes and Noble, said there were some more long-term plans to help students save money on books.
“We let students sell books back at the end of the semester, and we try to help them in that way,” she said.
DeAnne Anderson, manager of Bully’s Textbook Exchange, said students would probably opt to rent books instead of buying them if they had the option.
This would decrease the amount of business bookstores normally get, she said.
“It would not surprise me that if textbook rentals became more well known they [rentals] would take away business,” Anderson said.