New textbook shop opens in Westwood

By My Yen La
Daily Bruin Contributor

ASUCLA textbook stores face Westwood competition for the first
time in two years after Textbook Plus opened its doors last
month.

The Ackerman and Lu Valle book stores were the sole textbook
retailers in Westwood since Sisterhood Bookstore closed two years
ago.

“I think every textbook we have in our store is lower than
UCLA bookstore price,” said Mohsen Sharifi, the co-owner of
Textbook Plus. “We try to be more responsive to student
needs.”

Textbook Plus is reminiscent of the Ackerman textbook store. Its
books are organized alphabetically by class and professor and it
offers used textbooks and buyback.

Yet it boasts shorter lines, giving students more money for
buyback, which is offered daily, and taking special orders.

Textbook prices range from a few nickels to almost $15 to $20
lower than ASUCLA prices, according to Sharifi.

For example, the textbook for Life Sciences 1 costs about $104
at the Ackerman bookstore and about $96 at Textbook Plus.

Generally, the more expensive the textbook, the greater the
savings compared to the UCLA store price.

“We have to lower prices or nobody’s gonna
come.” Sharifi said.

Despite these factors, the UCLA Store is not worried about
having competition, according to the Director of Academic Support
Jacques Freydont.

“I can’t do my business any differently,”
Freydont said. “I can’t be looking over my
shoulder.”

Freydont said textbook stores lack the advantages of being
on-campus, offering as many used textbooks and having all books in
stock before the first day.

Freydont added that although textbook stores do offer aggressive
prices, their selections are not generally as broad as
ASUCLA’s. As a result, students usually have to go to
multiple bookstores to find all of their books.

“Our prices are based on our strategies of providing
textbooks,” Freydont said. “Nobody really takes on the
mission that we take on.”

Indeed, Textbook Plus did not have all of the books ready when
it opened at the beginning of winter quarter because it did not
have complete textbook information.

Its textbook list was obtained through the UCLA Web site and
some of the course book selections were not yet shown.

But Sharifi said he plans to obtain a complete list of
undergraduate and graduate course books before spring quarter. He
hopes to establish relations with UCLA to obtain that list.

He added that because many of the books are reused next quarter,
he should have little problem selling the books needed.

Efforts to advertise Textbook Plus have begun, including a Web
site which should be available after winter quarter.

The new competition comes to Westwood at a time when some
merchants say their business has been lost to UCLA.

In the past few years, ASUCLA’s main textbook competitors
have not been local. Rather, e-tailers such as bigwords.com and
varsitybooks.com were ASUCLA’s steepest competition.

But bigwords.com went out of business and varsitybooks.com has
recently limited its advertising efforts.

In order to succeed in Westwood, especially against the UCLA
Store, businesses must offer low prices and a healthy stock of
products, said Fred Sablan, the manager of Penny Lane Records and
Tapes.

“It’s supply and demand,” Sablan said.

For third-year civil engineering student Tara Liampetchakul,
Textbook Plus may cater to needs not met by the UCLA Store’s
textbook division.

“Sometimes Ackerman won’t have your books and I will
have to buy it online,” Liampetchakul said. “If the new
store carries the books, I think it would be a good
thing.”

Other students lean towards Ackerman depending on the amount
they could save.

“I would probably go there once to see what the price were
like,” said fifth-year business economics major Marc Eckhert.
“If they weren’t significantly different, I would go to
Ackerman.”

COMPARISON OF NEW TEXTBOOK PRICES Textbook Plus
prices are generally lower than UCLA Store prices for the same
books. This is a sample of textbook prices as of Feb. 13 for books
sold during winter quarter. SOURCE: Textbook Plus and UCLA Store
Web sites Original graphic by VICTOR CHEN/Daily Bruin Web
adaptation by SHARIF ELCOTT