I made a few minor modifications to the feedback process a couple of months ago which has prompted a more major revamp of the feedback process. Vendors have been asking for ways to monitor, respond to, and validate some of the negative feedbacks that have been left for them. I’ve put a lot of thought into this and have just released some changes that I think will make the entire feedback system on BookScouter more useful for both users and vendors.

The most noticable change will be that vendors can now respond to negative feedback. They may first respond privately to the user, perhaps asking for transaction information so that they can identify the situation. I suspect that most of the reputable companies will be able resolve the customer’s problem directly. After working with the vendor, if the user decides to post their negative feedback anyway, the vendor may then post a response that will be visible right next to the negative comments.

Unfortunately, there has been quite a backlog of feedback while I’ve been working on making these changes. We have been trying to do the same system manually via email, but keeping track of, and following up on all the messages was becoming overwhelming. I apologize if some comments have been very delayed, or if we’re having to contact you again regarding a comment that you thought was already resolved. There will probably be a week or so of confusion as we work through this backlog and as vendors learn how their new interface works. Moving forward, this should be a much cleaner process for everybody.

Thanks,
Brandon Checketts
BookScouter.com

I’ve just finished adding Amazon.com’s Textbook Trade-in prices to the site. The service is pretty new and I’ve not heard much feedback about it yet. Beware that they offer payment ONLY through Amazon.com gift cards. My understanding is that they credit is paid directly to your account, so I don’t know if there is any way to sell gift card and convert it to cash.

I believe that the buyback program is actually run by a third-party and not by Amazon directly.

From what I have seen, the service has been offering pretty competitive prices on some books recently. I’ve actually seen cases where they were buying books back for more than double the lowest marketplace price, so I think that they are still figuring out how to calculate their prices. I think they have some of the obvious problems worked out, but hopefully their new buyback program will be a good avenue to make some more money for those used books

With the addition of Amazon, that brings the total number of vendors searchable on BookScouter to 40 making it the most comprehensive site of its kind.

I’ve just added TextbookLink.com added to the site and it is displaying their prices now. It looks like their prices are pretty competitive, so if you give them a try, please leave some feedback to let others know how their service is.

I’ve just finished adding Chegg.com as a new merchant.  Chegg is primarily a company that rents textbooks to students, which is a farily new concept that seems to be gaining some traction.  From what I know, they are a pretty good company to deal with and they seem to be offering a pretty competitive price for many textbooks.   Please give them a try and leave feedback for them.

It looks like Powells also changed the layout of their page which broke lookups for it.  That has been fixed, and I see that they now offer payment via PayPal.