At Food for Thought, textbook buyer Mitch Gaslin said there's been about a 40% drop in textbook sales.
Food for Thought Books in downtown Amherst.AMHERST - A new federal law designed to save students on the costs of textbooks is hurting local independent bookstores, business owners said.
The law went into effect in July to help college students address the cost of textbooks. But the law - which requires colleges and universities accepting federal money to provide students with the names of required textbooks, the International Standard Book Numbers, and retail prices when registering for classes - has unintended consequences.
The law is hurting the local bookstores that rely on textbook sales to augment traditional book sales.
With the new information provided well ahead of the start of class, students can shop online and be sure with the international book number that they’re getting the right text for the class. Students are also able to rent books or buy them used. This change has hit Food for Thought Books, a non-profit workers' collective in downtown Amherst, especially hard. It is also affecting Amherst Books and the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, which has been supplying nearly all of the books used by Mount Holyoke College students.
Smith College’s Grécourt Bookshop is operated by Validis Resources, which currently runs about 260 college book stores nationwide, according to college spokeswoman Kristen Cole.
The University of Massachusetts bookshop is part of the Follett Higher Education Group as well, but some professors there and at Amherst College have been using the local stores as well.
Mitch Gaslin, the textbook buyer for Food for Thought, has been at the store since 1986. “We knew it was going to slow,” after the law kicked in, he said. “We didn’t anticipate the speed with which it was going to change.” Gaslin said they saw about a 40 percent drop in textbook sales.
That loss of business is forcing the shop, which began in 1976 with just a table in front the old Food Cooperative, to ask the community for financial help to stay alive. Gaslin said “We’re sort of in the initial stages of this.” They are looking at holding fund-raising events.
“We’re thinking about other things we can do,” Gaslin said. “Other things we can sell that might change the focus of the store.” They are also encouraging people to buy books because that too will help.
Nat Herold, one of the owners of Amherst Books not far from the collective, said they too saw sales of textbooks decline.
He said the law not only hurts local stores but reduces sales tax revenue for the state. Customers don’t pay sales tax if they purchase books from out of state vendors online.
To make up for the loss in sales, he said, “We’ve cut corners in a lot of areas. It hurts." But they are forging ahead.
“We have a good bookstore, but if the economy stays in the dumps and the percentage of online sales goes up it could hurt us.” The store is now selling books online from its website. “We’re trying to stay competitive.”
Neil Novik, co-owner of the Odyssey Bookshop, said the reduction in sales “is not as bad as we feared.” He said bookstores knew about the law about a year of head of time.
But he said, the sale of textbooks had been about half of the store’s gross sales.
“The future is uncertain for every store that deals in texts.” And he said they are all “trying to figure out what this will mean.” He said a store in Michigan closed after that state adopted the new law earlier.
Many stores all over the Pioneer Valley have already closed in recent years following the proliferation of both online sellers such as Amazon.com and the opening of big-box stores like Barnes & Noble.
But textbooks have been a lifeline for others.
Novik said that officials from the National Association of College Stores think the worst hits will be early on.
Novik said students from Mount Holyoke don’t know whether the shop might stock a used copy of the text they need if they don’t come in and that cost could be less than what they might pay for the title online.
The shop meanwhile is “looking at others areas to increase (sales.)” He said they’ve expanded the gift selection and are selling at conferences, including as far away as Marlborough.