Dear Mr. Bauer,

As with every great thing, the Claremont Colleges—otherwise one of the best places in the country—have a catch: Huntley Bookstore. As the only bookstore on campus—in a region where
it’s impossible for students without cars to seek alternatives—Huntley offers too few used copies of books and prices its stock exorbitantly. I understand that selling used texts depends on students’ selling them back (either at our college or around the country) and that the prices of books are predetermined by the publishers. Therefore, I will not fault Huntley or you alone as the new store manager for these grievances, but if this were the only problem I would not be writing this letter.

I find your return policy offensive and outright deceitful. The policy abuses your pseudo-monopoly status at the colleges, and must be changed before I will shop for books in your store again. The policy as it stands for the current semester is as follows:

(1) Books purchased between July 30 and September 5 must be returned by September 7 for a full refund of money and any books brought in for return after that time—bought within the same timeframe—will only be accepted upon proof of dropping the course up until October 26. (2) Books returned after September 7 for a dropped course that were purchased within the original 7-day timeframe will only receive store credit. (3) Books bought between September 6 and October 5 must be returned within two business days for what appears to be a full refund; however, this was not made clear to me when I last visited your store. (4) Sales after October 6 are final.

I am not sure how long your current policy has been in place, but I imagine it was implemented before you assumed management last year. But I remember reading in various newsletters to students that your goal for Huntley was to serve the Claremont Colleges more effectively. The website is much nicer and pre-ordering online is an improvement, although I haven’t used this feature. These improvements, however, fall flat without a change in your return policy.
Before I discuss why the policy is deceitful, I want to share with you the book-buying and class-scheduling process for many students at the colleges.

Each of the colleges offers a wide variety of classes in unique and classic disciplines with topics ranging from the obscure to the traditional. Students have the opportunity to “shop” around for the most ideal classes during the first few weeks of each semester. Most students will change at least one of their classes, if not all. At private colleges where students are paying as much as $17,000 per semester—including room and board—and almost $4,200 per class, choosing how this money is spent is a very important, fickle, and even nerve-racking process.

For Pomona, the first day of classes and the first day to add new classes this semester was September 3, and the last day to add classes was September 16. I may be an anomaly, but during those 14 days I attended seven different courses and finally registered for five. Of my five classes this semester, I pre-registered for only one. What is problematic here is that while I could have attempted to borrow or check out all of the books I needed for those first two weeks—an ineffective, time-consuming process—I instead bought only the books I needed for the first three weeks of each class. When September 7—the last day to return books bought during the first week of classes—came around, I still had not attended all of my classes, since one of them met for the first time on September 9, and I was no closer to figuring out which five classes would be on my final schedule. Unfortunately, when the final deadline to add classes came around on the September 16, I could return only for store credit the books I did not need.

Admittedly, I waited until September 18 to return my unneeded books, a whole two days after I had finalized my schedule, but I was still angered to find out that I could only return these books and receive store credit if I could also prove that I was no longer enrolled in the course. I understand that a strict return policy is needed for items like books, which can be read and/or copied and returned, but I also believe that the current policy needlessly and unfairly binds our money to Huntley Bookstore. As a business practice this is very shrewd; it ensures that you keep all the money you make during first week of classes. Ultimately, though, I believe that along with your high prices you lose more lucrative customers—who, like me, become disenchanted with Huntley’s on-campus convenience—than you keep.

With online bookstores and auction sites like Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Half.com, and more, all competing for textbook business, Huntley and other privately owned bookstores must rely on convenience and exceptional customer service. Huntley has the opportunity to offer a useful, profitable service to this community. As it stands now, however, without a fair full-refund return policy—which should extend at least as long as the add period—you are deceiving and cheating our community, and I will not purchase any books at Huntley in the future.