Following on with the collapse of Curious Planet (Australian Geographic), it seems the stores of Co-op Bookshop are closing down too even though they were bought out by Booktopia.
Perfect for the new semester of University, you can grab textbooks at a cut price of 40% off.
Other things on sale:
New Books: 40% off
Used Books: 50% off
Stationary: 30% off
Technology: 30% off
No refunds or exchanges unless faulty. In-store only.
You're telling me the 'lifetime' membership will end again?
Forgot to get my money back from my “lifetime” membership which started 20 years ago at uni. I guess it’s not happening now?
I wrote that off. For some I thought it got transferred to that cash card thing?
No you will retain it :) (good news….not)
Do I retain my Lifetime Membership?
Members of the Co-op retain their membership following the sale however Booktopia will of course not be providing membership benefits.
You can still shop for a limited time in Co-op stores across Australian campuses and Curious Planet stores as the Administrators are holding a Closing Down Sale.
Wonder if you can go in and ask for your membership fee back as it will be useless after the stores close.
Don't think they ever specified if it was your lifetime or the store's!
Nope. Everywhere else still sells textbooks for high price.
Any good deals on books?
Is this sale restricted to members only?
Is it too late to get a refund on the membership fee? (www.coop.com.au now redirects to booktopia)
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/190034
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/195119
Can you remember what that FAQ used to say?
I've never read any FAQ so I don't know what it said.
I have a contract for you to sign…
Clearance sale is for everyone across the board, memberships don't mean anything now as the sales are the highest discount available.
If they ever allowed refunds on used memberships, I've never heard of it and all co-op staff will just direct you to contact the administrators if you have any complaints.
If they ever allowed refunds on used memberships, I've never heard of it
How long have you been associated with Co-op? Membership fee have always been refundable until 2015 when the T&Cs were altered. Members of the Co-op who joined prior to the change are covered by the previous T&Cs.
Started working there 2016-ish, but never had anyone ask that question in-store. Would have been handled at the head office level anyway.
How the (profanity) did they go out of business when they charged exuberant prices for their textbook that every uni student was forced to buy?
Good question
Greed.
It worked for the days when online didn’t exist or didn’t ship worldwide. Once that changed they were doomed.
Also ebooks exist now too.
in the early 2000's i was buying textbooks from amazon, student boards/forums and an Indian online bookstore whose name i can't remember. even found an [pirated] ebook for Newtek Lightwave 3D that was only a couple of versions behind.
don't think i ever spent a cent in a Co-op the entire time i was at uni.
Also ebooks exist now too.
Ebooks were the worst-possible thing that could happen to textbooks. Now they re-arrange the chapters every year, and change the end-of-chapter questions too. So when the teacher/lecturer says "read chapter 4, and do questions 1-4", you can't do that unless you have the current year's textbook.
Selected lecturers when I was at Uni referred their content to current and previous editions of the textbook.
@abc: That's a mark of an excellent lecturer.
When I was at uni, many lecturers published their own notes as the textbook, saving the students a heap of money. The university printed them at close to cost price. You didn't get colour pictures and a nice hard cover, but that was a tradeoff everyone was happy to take.
Probably nowadays you would get colour pictures for at least some of the pages.
Probably because students have wised up and they know there are other options like secondhand on fb marketplace or ebooks. IMO they deserved to go out of business, taking advantage of broke uni students with huge textbook mark ups is insane.
I didn’t buy text books for heaps of my course. Used the library reference books. My marks suffered but they were too pricy
In my first semester, I bought all the recommended textbooks from them. Afterwards I released what a sucker I was, and only bought the textbooks secondhand or ebooks if it became apparent that I absolutely NEEDED them.
Brought all of my textbooks in the first year. Photocopied all of my textbooks after first year.
They had it coming.
"They are signing the death knell of the bookshop," she said. "The only point of the bookshop is to sell books and if the books are not there when the students arrive there is no point having a bookshop."
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/death-knell-for-th…
What technology stuff do they sell? Any laptops? The site seems to direct you to booktopia so cannot explore old listings.
nope. flash drives, cables, those kind of accessories.
It is the publishers who are screwing students, not the bookshops.
Can be both. Towards the end of semester, the bookshops will often sell off all the old stock - at maybe a quarter of the price. Bookshops usually have the option of returning the books to the publisher as unsold stock, so I expect the uni bookshops are at least doubling the wholesale price to get the retail price, like most retail stores do.
I went to WSU's Co-Op today. It was selling mostly WSU branded merchandise, souvenirs, lab coats and nursing uniforms. There were some general stationery and even fewer books and textbooks. I did pick up a hardcover copy of Systems Analysis and Design (with CourseMate, 1 term (6 months) Printed Access Card) (Shelly Cashman Series), 10th Edition for $7.15. They were marked as secondhand books but they were also shrink wrapped and look unopened. Ticketed RRP $142.90, Members Price $14.30, and then 50% off secondhand books.
50% off of WSU branded merch, 30% branded clothing + stationary, select secondhand books 90% off (not restricted to members, applies to everyone) half the time old bulk stock they were trying to get rid of. Nursing uniforms are excluded from the clearance sale.
Probably worth noting that you can no longer use gift cards/textbook vouchers with them any longer as well.
Does this mean the monopoly on textbooks has been broken? Do go on…