Last modified: 10/03/05
  Yannis Grammatis


Home  >High School  >Books & Supplies  >Buying and Selling Tips

Buying Tips

  • Don’t have internet access?  Call VarsityBooks customer service at 1-877-827-2665 and order your books over the phone.

  • AOL subscriber?  If you are using an old version of AOL, you might encounter some problems placing an order on the website.  Consider updating your version, coming to our campus hosted on line afternoon in August or phoning in your order.

  • Need to pay by cash or check?  VarsityBooks accepts orders to be paid by check… just call 1-877-827-2665.  Also, Chaminade will host a day in August where you can order your books from VarsityBooks, but pay with cash or check.  Watch your calendar for the date.

  • Finalize Your Course Schedule:  Before ordering books, make sure you are comfortable with your schedule of classes.  This will control your shipping costs.  If you have already ordered all your books for the year and then change your schedule, you will incur three shipping charges – one with the initial order, one to return books not needed and one to order new books needed.  That could mean unnecessarily spending an additional $10 or more for changing a class.  So again, don’t order books for classes you may not take.

  • Get the Right Books:  Have your student schedule at hand when ordering books and compare course titles carefully.  Some of our courses may have similar titles, but different books.

  • Control Shipping Costs:  VarsityBooks.com charges one shipping fee, no matter how many books are ordered.  Make the most of this by ordering all your books at the same time – middle school, high school and even college/university books.

  • Returning Books:  VarsityBooks.com’s standard return policy is 30 days, with some limitations if a semester is almost concluded.

  • Access Through Chaminade:  To visit the VarsityBooks.com site, enter from the school’s site, www.Chaminade.org.  The school will receive a small percentage of all sales which can help support programs.

  • Credit Cards: When you place an order online with VarsityBooks.com, your personal information and credit card information are encrypted using state of the art technology making it virtually impossible for your information to be stolen or intercepted while being transferred.  Any stored information is protected inside an encrypted database.  Purchases made with a credit card are also protected by the federal Fair Credit Billing Act, which generally limits the cardholder to $50 liability.  VarsityBooks.com is so confident in their security, they will pay the $50 liability if the unauthorized transactions occurred through no fault of your own from purchases made at VarsityBooks.com while using the secure server.  However, if you do not want to enter your credit card number account online, call the VarsityBooks.com’s toll free number 1-877-VAR-BOOK (1-877-827-2665).

Selling Tips
Chaminade facilitates two methods for families to sell used textbooks.

We have arranged for a professional book buying firm to come on campus after end-of-the-year finals.  The firm will pay anywhere from a few cents to about 25% of the cost of a new book, depending upon national market needs and book condition. Obviously, this method does not pay much per book, but has the advantage of being very quick and convenient. Watch for details to be sent home closer to finals.

Chaminade hosts a website where students/parents can list books available for sale to other Chaminade students. For a book in excellent condition, prices tend to approximate 50% of the price of a new book. While this process is more involved for those selling books and there is no assurance that books will be sold, the advantage is that the price per book normally nets more to the selling party. 

For the website address, please contact the book manager. For security purposes we do not supply a link to this website. Please contact the Book Manager for this website address.