University of Toronto Bookstore

I have been to the U of T bookstore several times and always walk away with the same impression: chaotic and overpriced. There seems to be no cogent organization in place and the staff are disinterested and unhelpful when dealing with customers. One feels like they are putting the staff out by daring to interrupt one of their (no doubt very important) conversations.
My wife is an alum of the University and we have popped in to buy a few items of apparel. It is typically way (and I mean way) overpriced. Example: a sweatshirt for a toddler — $ 40 plus 13% G.S.T. Oh no, no, no!!!
TIP: They sometimes have sales but I have noticed that what it looks like is they run up a bunch of cheap t shirts and sweatshirts with U of T logos and put them on sale. You never see these «special» items on sale at other times. Occasionally, you can find a true sale item but it is rare.
I once found a shirt that was on clearance and the staff would not sell it because the price tag was torn and part of the bar code was missing. Despite the fact that every other piece of the tag was there along with the price, the staff member could not be bothered looking up the code or manually entering the price. One of the most absurd examples of bad customer service I have ever seen!
If you want a U of T shirt you are stuck with this place but don’t get too excited beforehand, you will be disappointed!

As my brother would say (he’s British) — «It’s highway robbery!» *shakes fist*. If I can, I always rent or buy used. In terms of renting, they’re really cool about letting you write and highlight in the books. I’ve never had mine turned away upon returning — and I am a major book defiler. But you do need a credit card to hold a rented book (and one that is valid until the end of the course). Used books are often untouched (if you get there early on) or only highlighted to the first chapter (after which the previous student probably lost gusto for the course). If you want a helping hand, get one that is all filled and highlighted. It’s UofT’s version of having the Half-​Blood Prince walk you through the course. Anddd if you got that reference, you are lamer than I.
Clothing is wayyyy overpriced. Wait for the «Super Secret Sales» which are advertised to hell and beyond — really hard to ignore. At which point, apparel becomes only moderately overpriced.

Definitely very expensive, but also pretty convenient. I try to buy everything online, except when there are deals. I also like the new rent-​a-​textbook options for packages that are in your best interest to buy here (such as textbooks that come with a solution book, or subscriptions to online learning activities).
Moral of the story.
Only come here for packaged textbook deals. Everything else can be bought on Ebay, and amazon, or any other site for half the price (and instantly for ebooks, it’s also environmentally friendly.)
–Also they have sales on clothes and electronics usually at the start of each semester. That’s the only time I would reccomend buying any UofT gear here.

The U of T bookstore is the last place I will ever go to buy my textbooks. This place is HUGELY overpriced. Seriously, explore all your other options before buying from here. I highly recommend TUSBE, the engineering book store, amazon, and any other place you can find.
I was originally going to buy my books from this place in first year, but my dad found out about the engineering book store and we went there to compare prices. Well, the books are either the same price or cheaper, so you can’t go wrong with getting your stuff there instead. However, after buying my first year textbooks, I found out about TUSBE. I wound up returning all of my textbooks to the eng store and bought them off TUSBE instead (for probably 30% of what I would have paid at the UofT bookstore). Honestly, TUSBE students are usually people like you who just want to get rid of their books and don’t have a good way to do so. The books are generally barely used/​simply read through and will cost less than half of the original.
Also, their clothing merchandise is way overpriced and the sizing sucks. Don’t have unisex clothing for guys and girls and then not buy any XS sizes. My best suggestion for buying clothing is to wait for their ‘secret sales’ (not so secret as they are advertised). You can get shirts for $ 5-​$ 10 and sweats are $ 17 or so. Hoodies can be cheap during this time too.
For stationary, they are generally ok. It’s hard to overcharge on a pencil.
So in summary, look for TUSBE for textbooks (I have bought and sold all my textbooks on there for the same price so so far I have paid nothing for my textbooks and I’m in third year engineering), wait for their sales for clothing, and stationary is fine to buy there.

Ok ok, ça fait 4 ans que je suis plus étudiant, mais je suis passé voir une amie qui y travaille. Ce bookstore est impressionnant vous pourrez vous équiper pour la rentrée de la tête aux pieds! Entre livres, fournitures scolaires, hoodies et même ipads et macbook U of T pense à tout.
Attendez vous bien sur à des files d’attente impressionnantes les jours précédant la rentrée scolaire.
/​/​All right, I graduated four years ago now but I went by to see a friend who is working there. This bookstore is huge and you can get your school gear basically from head to toe. Between books, hoodies even ipads and macbooks, U of T have thought about everything.
Get ready to see huge lines up if you go there just before back to school day.

Specifically in regards to the computer shop. Horrible service and staff that aren’t interested in helping out. Also, all sales are final, so if you buy a Mac and want to return it (as you can if you buy through Apple) you’re out of luck. Since you can get the educational discount through Apple, there’s no reason to bother with the computer shop.

Yes, it’s expensive — but all textbooks are; you’ll likely find ‘em cheaper on Amazon. I bought my textbooks here for the sake of convenience, but I think I’m just going to buy them on the Kindle/​iPad next term — cheaper, and I won’t get scoliosis by the end of the year lugging all those books around campus!
With that said, the rest of the bookstore is just okay. The stationery section is rather limited for a campus bookstore, so I’d suggest going elsewhere for your pen and pencil needs. On the other hand, if you do use an iPad, they have a TON of cases — certainly one of the larger selections of iPad cases I’ve seen anywhere, including the Apple store. Lines inside the store itself move very quickly, but for some reason the Web pickup line moves as slow as a slug on quaaludes.

I took a continuing education at U of T and had a decent experience at the bookstore. Obviously university bookstores are overpriced, but you’re also paying for the convenience — I was OK with paying a bit more since I was only taking one course, and I could walk in, grab the books, pay for them and leave. I didn’t find the books on Amazon and was too lazy to go running around the city looking for them.
If you can find your books elsewhere, definitely do it. But if you’re lazy or there isn’t that much of a price difference, the U of T bookstore isn’t awful. I also liked the novelty of having a cute pink U of T clipboard, so maybe I’m just as big of a sucker as the first-​years.

What can one really say about a university bookstore? Textbooks are expensive, students need them, students have no money– it’s never going to be a truly happy relationship, is it? A relationship of convenience, or of blackmail, maybe. Oh, I jest.
After spending a lot more time in this store (you might say, getting to know the forced-​upon friend), I started to appreciate its finer points, like the absolutely stunning upstairs area known as «Great Hall» (filled with hundreds on non-​text books!), which boasts very high, ornate ceilings, and equally-​high windows that let in some glorious light at the right time of day. The staff (largely students) are mostly very friendly and laid-​back and the general atmosphere is unusually lovely for browsing shelves of fiction. It used to be the library, you know.
The sale tables sometimes have such good findings, it’s ridiculous, and you can buy pants that advertise your bum and your school at the same time! (I have at least 2 pairs myself, so I say this with great respect).

One of those times I am upset you can not give 0 stores.
A place that is absolutely dedicated to screwing over the students.
The text books are unusually expensive (I have ordered identical, brand new books for ¼ the price from amazon!!)
Some of the staff are the rudest and least helpful possible. for e.g. I had a situation that a course text had been changed and I wanted to return a book (1 week old!). The book was not originally in a wrapper and I had not even read it, save flipping through it. The staff would not take it back saying their «manager would not allow it because it has been opened to page 1». Of course the kid then directed me to the «manager» which turned out to be another student worker since I met the manager minutes later… long story short kids, you have lots of cheaper options, you want new… use amazon! you want almost new, use tusbe. There are many other ways to be a patron of your university!

Unless you’ve got loads of cash you’d like to waste (which first year students apparantly love to do), then stay away from this bookstore! Books are WAAYY overpriced and although they have some cool UofT clothing, they too are overpriced as well. $ 50 for sweats that have the UofT logo embroidered on them? No than. oh wait crap I bought them (as you can probably guess, I was one of the ones that went crazy in first year and bought all the UofT crap I could)
If you’re looking to buy books these days, buy them online! You can buy them for at least half the price the bookstore sells it for!
The upstairs has a pretty cool computer shop but again is pretty overpriced and you can find better deals along College street.
Overall I haven’t had great experiences of being ripped off while waiting an hour in line.

Going to this bookstore brings back old memories of university. I still remember first year going with my mom to the bookstore to buy all my textbooks for all my courses for the year. The bags weighed a good 20 lbs.
U of T bookstore is a fairly large store. They organize their books by discipline. I was in the sciences, so all my books were on the main first floor. In addition to having every current educational book there, they also have a wide array of U of T merchandise. You know what i’m talking about, UofT sweat shirts, stickers, cups, hoodies, hats, bags, just about every possible thing you can think of.
Attached to the Koffler centre, there’s also a place you can buy school supplies — pencils, pens, calculators, markers etc. I once had to forfeit some moola to buy a calculator after I forgot mine on the day of an exam. Yeah, not the smartest thing, but I was glad the bookstore carried them that day, that’s for sure.
If you don’t have the time to go into the bookstore and buy the books yourself, you can order them online and pick them up outside the bookstore, in the koffler centre. Pretty good service for the time-​crunched students.