Price competition in the textbook market: Bigwords.com

Citation

Pitta, D.A. (2006), "Price competition in the textbook market: Bigwords.com", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 23 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2006.07723fag.001

Price competition in the textbook market: Bigwords.com

Textbooks may be viewed as the lifeblood of education. They encapsulate the vital elements of bodies of knowledge and are found universally in schools, colleges and universities. For those of us who finished university education years ago, current prices may be a shock. As a case in point, I remember my first general marketing text, Marketing by McCarthy. The year was 1971 and McCarthy’s book was the market leader. The price was US$10.50. My fellow classmates joked that it cost two cases of a national brand of beer. Today the market leader is Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller’s Marketing Management. Its current price is over US$140. While the price of beer has increased over time, the book now costs the equivalent of nine cases of that same brand.

Faced with burgeoning book costs, students have found the used book market. Many campus bookstores carry both new and used books and buy books at the end of semesters. By paying less than 50 percent for a once-used book, bookstores can price it at 70-80 percent of the price of a new copy and make a profit while offering some savings. However, in many universities, there is little pressure on pricing. Required books must be obtained and there is often little competition. Students who want to save money are reduced to posting want ads on campus bulletin boards. Now, the internet has intervened with an effective alternative.

Bigwords.com[www.bigwords.com]

I have written about Bigwords.com numerous times in a few newspapers and in each of my course sections since 2002. Bigwords.com is a shopping robot service that finds the best prices for specific books. The service is remarkable for several reasons. First it delivers a variety of sources which carry the sought after title, in new or used condition. The sources usually charge different prices and Bigwords.com reports the prices clearly. Second, it provides purchased books in a timely fashion.

To get a better perspective on the site’s value, one should consider the traditional course and the process of purchasing its textbook. In the past, students arrived in class, received a printed course syllabus and learned the textbook requirements. After class, they headed to the campus bookstore and bought the books they needed. Time was short and often students needed the book within a day or two. This was a great advantage to the conveniently located campus bookseller. Today, the situation has changed. Syllabi are often available online before the start of the semester. Students can download and print them and have exact textbook information. With sufficient lead-time, students have more convenient alternatives to the campus bookstore. I first became aware of Bigwords.com several years ago. It was the first class of the term and after I announced the textbook, one student asked to used her laptop computer to search for the best price. Intrigued, I let her search and asked that she share her findings with the class. I was impressed. Within a few minutes she found numerous used copies at substantial discounts. As a benchmark, we surveyed the class for those who bought new and used copies at the campus bookstore. Prices for both were higher than those listed on Bigwords.com, even when shipping costs are included.

What was more impressive was the class reaction. Several students asked to buy copies online also. By agreement, they allowed one student to place an order for 12 books. That student paid with a credit card and all others agreed to pay her for their copies. By the next class, each of the 12 had the book. Significantly, several students had already bought the book on campus but still ordered a copy online. They planned to return the high priced copy and keep the less expensive book bought over the web. The implication is that campus bookstores will face increasing competition from web-based alternatives. To survive, this may accelerate their implementation of scrambled merchandising by which lines of non-book products supplement their textbook lines.

Functions of the web site. The site’s opening page features the, “BIGWORDS Total Order Comparison The BIGWORDS.com Uber-BOT compares textbook, book, and music prices, shipping, and promotions at every major store, and compares your total cost 3 ways.”

Lest anyone wonder what the three ways are, the site provides the answer: “Total order comparison is... (1) best possible price: We compare every possible combination of store, book, CD, shipping, and promotions, to show you the best possible price. (2) Best single store price: The cheapest price for all your items from a single store, inclusive of shipping and promotions. (3) All the information: A do it yourselfer’s dream. We show you the price, shipping, and promotion at every single store.”

To use the robot, one follows a series of steps. Step one requires users to enter either the ISBN number, or the title or the author’s name. Pressing the search button, returns any matches.

Step two, is labeled, “Locate the Item on Your List,” and pertains to searches that yield multiple items. Each returned item shows an image of the book cover, the title, the authors, the ISBN number, the publisher, release date and two choices, one marked BUY, the other SELL. The choices are tantamount to foolproof. With sufficiently good information, buyers should choose the correct title.

Step three, is labeled, “Your Book Bag.” It is a conventional online shopping cart that provides detailed information and allows additions and deletions. It lists each book a user wants to buy and has a two choice menu: “Buy only new items,” and “Used when cheaper.” Demonstrating sensitivity to price, the used choice is the default. When a person is satisfied with the book bag contents, he or she can start the comparison process. The site supplies a neat feature, a trivia screen to fill the time required by the search process. For simple, one-text orders, it does not appear since the search is usually short. For complicated market baskets with longer search times, the screen appears to provide a bit of entertainment and tantalize the mind. It is difficult to estimate its value but the target audience, college students who have grown up in the television era, probably have little patience for delay. The device is brilliant.

Step four is a price comparison screen in which users can choose the specific vendor and item listed. Helpfully, the first item shown is the lowest priced alternative, complete with shipping cost and vendor information. The second item repeats the best price and offers Half.com, booksamillion.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Bookscentral.com, and ecampus.com. Each vendor’s price and shipping cost are included. In addition, all vendors’ choices are linked directly to their web sites. Shopping for books was never so easy.

However, for the skeptical student, a third panel includes all the order information including shipping costs and time and buy links for each vendor.

We performed a sample search on a popular marketing textbook: Marketing Management, 12th edition, by Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller, the text we adopted for the class. The first response was a used copy of the “12 International edition, same contents as the US,” with a total price of $30.64 including shipping. Bigwords supplied a supplier rating (Supplier deemed reliable) and a link to purchase online. The results were startling. Bigwords.com also supplied a list of other selections ranging from offerings of the recognized online retailers like Amazon.com (new $142.49) and Barnes and Noble.com (new $153.35) to those less well known sites like ecampus.com (new $107.33) and Valore books (unspecified $77.90). The robot found excellent prices and demonstrated those price savings. Moreover, the items appeared to be linked to retailers’ inventories. I was confident that the best price was in fact the best price.

The fifth step places the order. That really is not the end of the process. After placing an order, buyers have three other choices: “Request Bigwords.com stickers,” “Print out a Bigwords.com poster,” and “Tell your professor about the Bigwords.com robot.” All are designed to increase word of mouth.

Overall evaluation. Other web sites offer shopping robots for other industries. Bigwords.com capitalizes on a user-friendly interface with relatively quick response to capture its target audience. By surveying a half dozen book sites, it is likely to return at least one attractively priced used alternative. The combination of ease of use, effectiveness, and an easily remembered web site name spell success.

Shopping robots are not new; several industries employ them to aid consumers in their search for best prices. For example the computer retail market features sophisticated robots that deliver 20 or more choices for specific products. In this case, the items are new, not used. Retailers have begun to use them as competitive intelligence tools. They will search for best prices on products they sell and adjust their prices to be the lowest. On a given day, several retailers will have prices on specific items that vary by a few cents. The result is a measure of price uniformity.

The book retail market is quite different. Adding used books into the choice set disperses potential price points. In this respect, Bigwords.com offers value to numerous consumers by uncovering sources of savings. In doing so, it exploits the internet’s information processing advantages.

In our next issue, we will investigate other informative sites and invite readers to submit their favorite Internet sites for our consideration.

Reader requests

Please forward all requests to review innovative Internet sites to: Dr Dennis Pitta, University of Baltimore, 1420 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201-5779, USA. Alternatively, please send e-mail to: dpitta@ubalt.edu for prompt attention.

Edited by Dennis A. PittaUniversity of Baltimore