While the majority of post-secondary educational institutions have quickly made a heroic switch from the classroom to online learning during this pandemic, it has surfaced that an associated problem is how to get learning materials into the hands of students. Campus bookstores are for the most part closed and so is gone the usual source for student books and eBooks.
English Central is happy to say that we are able to help in this situation. We can get physical books and eBook codes into the hands of your students, economically and reliably. Further convenience is that we deal with all major publishers (and a lot of smaller ones too), so we offer the convenience of one-stop shopping.
Some notes follow on the service we can provide, though we encourage you to contact us with any questions or to go ahead with this program. Please email nicole@englishcentral.net.
How does it work?
We will need you to supply us with the titles and ISBNs of the materials you use, your start date and expected enrolment (we understand that numbers right now are often a bit of a question mark; estimates are fine). We will then confirm prices and order in the necessary quantities so that they will be available to ship out as soon as students place their orders. We will add these materials to our eCommerce site. We will also create a PDF for your program to distribute to your students, listing the materials by course and hyperlinking them to our eCommerce site; this will make the ordering process as simple as possible for students and will ensure they order the correct materials. Physical books will be shipped to students’ homes, codes will be emailed to them.
Pricing
We will charge list price for the materials, which is either the same or less than what students would be paying in a campus bookshop. For eBooks, there will be no additional charges (other than tax). For physical books, we will be subsidizing shipping charges. For orders over $100, shipping will be free. For orders less than $100, we will charge half of the Canada Post rate (there will be a promo code on the PDF we produce for you). Of course, there will be no shipping charge for eBooks. Contactless pickup is also available for those in the Toronto area.
Are there any obligations?
No. And if not many of your students end up buying, there will be no penalties.
How do you move forward with this?