1. What factors cause a marketing textbook to lose value during the period of one semester? It is not unusual for a student to receive less than one-half of the purchase price when he or she sells the book at end of the semester?
The analysis below presents issues surrounding marketing textbook use. The analysis focuses on microeconomic principles surrounding demand and supply, and focuses on smaller individual units, since marketing textbook use is best analyzed within that realm, rather than the broader aggregates that macroeconomics would explore (Miller, 2006, p. 3).
Economics refers to how best to use limited resources to satisfy unlimited once, and centers on the issue of scarcity. That is, because there are limited resources, individual have to make choices, by making choices, there are trade-offs, the cost of the next best alternative after a choice is made, is called the opportunity cost of that particular action (Miller, 2006, p. 2). Using marketing textbooks and then reselling them will cause them to lose value and as such we expect the demand to be highly elastic at that stage, that is, consumers overall are very responsive to price changes, since using marketing textbooks second hand means that there are other options. Many sources exist from which to buy used textbooks (even more so than brand new textbooks) which makes it have many substitutes and increases the elasticity. Marketing textbook prices decrease due to a drop in value when it is resold at a later date. The general view is that lower prices for marketing textbooks imply people will buy more of it (this is the law of demand); however, prices will be even lower with a used textbook.
As rational beings, individuals pursue actions that satisfy their own self-interest (Miller, 2006 ...