VALOREBOOKS.COM
VALOREBOOKS.com is an eight-year San Diego-based company specializing in offering college students the opportunity to save on average between 50 and 60 percent on a textbook’s list price and as much as 90 percent on such materials by shopping at their Internet marketplace.
More than 4 million customers go online to search their catalog of more than 100 million books in 50 categories. Additionally, the site allows students to sell their used textbooks to ValoreBooks directly or to others via a marketplace micro site.
Here's some recent positive press for the company and its sister outlets, thanks to Stalwart Communications!
New York Times
Finding Cheaper Textbooks: 2nd Edition
ValoreBooks.com, a large marketplace with options to buy, rent or sell books, said it had declared a “price war” on its rivals who also rent books. As part of its guarantee program, the company will match any rental prices found elsewhere within seven days of your transaction. In a press release, the company pointed to three examples where it undercut Chegg, a competing rental company. But when I performed a search, I found a cheaper rental at CampusBookRentals.com, so results may vary based on what you search for. ValoreBooks’ rentals offers free shipping both ways, and shipping on books you purchase starts at $3.95.
Internet Retailer
An online marketplace uses its inventory to combat a new competitor
ValoreBooks lets wholesalers automate purchases of used book inventory.
By Don Davis
Bobby Brannigan admits he wasn’t convinced that college students would rent textbooks in large numbers, because they wind up paying more than if they buy a book and then sell it back. But when a new, well-funded competitor, Chegg, upended the online textbook market two years ago with its rental service, Brannigan knew his online service, ValoreBooks.com, had to react.
BNet (CBS Interactive Network)
How We Survived Getting Sued by the Big Guys
By Bobby Brannigan, CEO, ValoreBooks
I launched ValoreBooks, an online marketplace for textbooks, with 12 college friends. We devoted years to building the company and went heavily into debt. Then, just as we were poised to become profitable, our biggest competitors hit us with a lawsuit that threatened to destroy us.
EdReformer
The Case of the Giant Beaver and a Textbook
by Douglas Crets
I talked with Bobby Brannigan, this week about his CEO view of the business strategy for ValoreBooks.
We know by now that book publishers face a pretty huge shift in not only how they distribute their product, textbooks, but WHAT they distribute. From now until probably the next five years, the textbook industry is going to have to move from physical, purchased textbooks to something more like e-books. How that will work, and on what devices they will run is still up for questions. Bobby, who also writes an expert blog at Fast Company, says that ValoreBooks wants to become the biggest distributor of rented textbooks, and, eventually, e-books, over the next few years.
San Diego 6 News (CW)
Report on the launch of the Rental Service
CollegeThrive.com
Do you want to win free textbooks for all of your classes next fall? Today might just be your lucky day then.
ValoreBooks, a San Diego based textbook marketplace recently launched their summer video contest. The
contest is a once in a lifetime opportunity to win free textbooks and save tons of money.
WIVB (CBS, Buffalo)
Three friends solve Bucks4Books contest
Imagine if you had to find a tiny poker chip hidden somewhere in Buffalo. The Bucks4Books store at Elmwood
and Amherst recently sponsored the "Gain and Give" challenge. By day 12, three friends found the chip
hidden in a tree in Shoshone Park. They get to split $2,500. Another $2,500 will go to the Ronald McDonald
House.
CBS MoneyWatch
12 Most Expensive College Textbooks in America
By Lynn O'Shaughnessy
Why are these books pricier than others? ” In general some books are more expensive because of the research involved and limited number of copies used in the market place,” observes Bobby Brannigan, CEO and founder of Valore Books, who started selling used textbooks when he was in college in the early 2000’s.
San Diego News Network
Don’t get screwed selling college textbooks back to the bookstore
By Joseph Pena
When finals end and the pomp and circumstance settles, there’s a cold, hard fact at the end of every college
academic year: You will get screwed selling your textbooks back to the college bookstore. Book buy-back
websites can work in your favor. ValoreBooks.com is a San Diego-based online marketplace for students to
buy and sell college textbooks. It started in New York State in 2002, when chief executive officer Bobby
Brannigan tried to sell his textbooks back to the campus store at the State University of New York Fredonia.
WGRZ (NBC, Buffalo)
Bucks4Books Hosts “Treasure Hunt”
BUFFALO-A local business is looking to put some cash in the pocket of a Western New Yorker, while also giving back to the community.
Bucks4Books has hidden a chip worth $5,000 somewhere in Erie County. They’ll be posting clues on their Facebook page and in stores everyday until someone finds it. The person who finds it will get $2,500 cash and Buck4Books will donate the rest to a charity or school organization of the winner’s choice.
