There was a huge jump from last year in the number of college bookstores offering book rental programs to students. According to OnCampus Research, a division of the National Association of College Stores, in fall 2010 2,200 college stores reported having rental programs, compared with only 300 in 2009.
The numbers are "higher than we ever expected," said NACS chief of planning and research Julie Taylor. Adding that her organization’s members were particularly concerned with the rising cost of textbooks (and how those costs were affecting the retail choices of their customers), Taylor said that “the savings rentals can generate really caught [our members’] imaginations and they ran with it.” Through the rental program students usually pay between 33% and 55% of the full price textbook.
Rental programs for retailers can be "riskier and costlier" for stores to offer, NACS said, but demand for cheaper pricing on textbooks is pushing college bookstores to look for new ways of doing business. The numbers from this latest survey also indicate that both independently-owned colleges stores, and the chains, are using rental programs – of the stores included in the survey 786 are run by Follett, 300 by Barnes & Noble College, and 300 by Nebraska Book Company.
There are also plans from many stores to expand their rental offerings. Two-thirds of the stores who took part in the OnCampus survey said they intend to offer more titles for rent over the next year, while 43% of the stores surveyed that did not have rental programs said they intend to start one. In addition, 150 B&N stores and 50 Follett stores are adding rental programs for the spring semester. Given the response, NACS director of public relations Charles Schmidt said: "This means that almost 2,400 college stores are currently offering textbook rentals, and more than 3,000 should be offering textbook rental by next fall.”
