BiggerBooks Review

Wednesday, March 19th

2025 College Textbook Store Reviews

BiggerBooks

• In business since 2001
• Daily coupon codes
• Textbook rentals for different periods (Semester, Quarter, Short Term)
• Buyback program
• Free shipping for orders over $59
• Refunds available for 25 days after purchase

Around since 2001, BiggerBooks claims to have the "largest used book inventory” and that their "bigger selection of used books equals bigger savings.” They try to differentiate themselves from competitors with their Daily Deal feature, which makes a new coupon code available to customers every day of the week.

Physical textbook rentals aren't going anywhere

While one notable competitor recently rolled back their textbook rentals, BiggerBooks is standing by this business model. Search for your textbook by title, author, or ISBN and you'll be taken to the list of results of titles available for rent or purchase. On each listing's page, you'll find their prices for each rental period: you have the option to rent by Semester, Quarter, and Short Term. Next to each option, you'll see the date the textbook would be due if you were to rent it today.

Prices aren't as low as they say

We found even the rental prices to be a little on the expensive side, though. The Short Term rental (roughly 2 months) on a particular textbook would cost $29.60. When we checked a competitor site, we found several used copies of this book available for purchase for a few dollars less. Forget renting - if you want to buy the textbook used from BiggerBooks? That'll be $63.20. Given that that's about 3 times the purchase price we found elsewhere, BiggerBooks' 7% Tuesday discount isn't enough to make their prices competitive.

Buyback program has strict terms

Ready to cash in on your textbooks? BiggerBooks offers a straightforward Buyback program to help you turn those old books into some extra cash. Simply enter the ISBNs of the books you want to sell, and you'll get a quote that is valid for 7 days. But here's the catch: if your textbooks don't meet their standards, they won't be returned; they'll be destroyed. So, before you send them off, make absolutely sure they meet BiggerBook's condition guidelines to avoid missing out on payment and the chance to resell elsewhere with less stringent standards.

Returns subject to shipping and restocking fees

Your order will qualify for free shipping if it's over $59. Otherwise, for 6-10 day Standard Shipping, you'll have to pay $4 plus $0.99 for each item included in the order. Orders are eligible for refund up to 25 days after purchase; however, you'll have to pay shipping and a 10% restocking fee (ouch!).

Supplemental materials not included

Make sure you don't need an access code for your textbook. Gone are the days when all you needed was the book itself - publishing companies have gotten wise to students renting and reselling textbooks to save money, and now you often can't access your course material without a one-time code that you can only get with a new textbook. BiggerBooks is no different from other used textbook companies in that they can't guarantee your textbook will come with that access code or any other supplemental materials (like CDs).

Unhappy customers

We found multiple 1- and 2-star reviews from customers who say BiggerBooks sold them textbooks they didn't actually have on hand. Customers were charged and not refunded or notified of the mistake until they reached out to inquire about why their orders had not yet arrived.

Look somewhere else

BiggerBooks talks a big game about their affordability (even promising savings up to 91% on list prices), but we didn't find these claims to be substantiated in our own test case. You might still luck out and find the specific used textbook you need at its lowest price here, but that could be said for virtually any of the websites in our review. With high rental fees, less-than-generous return and buyback policies, and poor order fulfillment, we're forced to give BiggerBooks a below-average ranking.