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This editorial is written by Andy Jett, director of the student union for KU Medical Center in Kansas City. He wrote the following piece and posted it on the KU Web site, as well as mailing it to first-year medical students. Feel free to share it with your students, to write a similar editorial to post on your Web site, or to submit for publishing in your campus newspaper. If you have a story to share, please forward to Mark Palmore.

Buyer Beware Online Ordering!
Medical student learns the hard way: buying online isn't always a good deal.
By Andy Jett

Online buyers beware! The popularity of buying items online has obviously taken off. With that popularity has come the perception of increased value at lower cost. Perception is the key word in that sentence. I want to share with you a case that applies to many items purchased online versus buying them from your own brick-and-mortar bookstore. Here is the story:

A medical student needed to purchase a diagnostic kit for his class. The instructor informed him that the college bookstore had for years provided these kits at reasonable prices and could do so again. The medical student, like many, went to the bookstore and was quite amazed at the price tag on the kit. Also like many students, he decides to go to the Web in search of a better deal. Without much effort he finds a "great" price and buys the kit at a lower price than the one at the bookstore. Great! He saved money and all is right with the world.

Great story, right? Well, this is only part of the story. Read on.

Many months later, a part on the diagnostic kit breaks and is in need of repair. The student calls the kit company and asks where he can take it to be fixed. The company states that the closest "dealer" is right on campus — the campus bookstore. The operator asks the student, "Did you buy the kit at the campus bookstore?" Of course we know the answer to that question. The operator goes on to tell the student that he should return his kit to the company he bought it from. This means the student has to pay to ship his kit and wait for it to be fixed and shipped back.

The point of the story is this: had the medical student purchased his kit at the campus bookstore he would have gotten free service and parts and wouldn't have had to pay shipping costs. Plus, my bookstore would have loaned him a replacement piece in the meantime so he wouldn't get behind in class.

Buying online may seem like a great bargain, but a lower up-front cost doesn't mean you are getting the best deal.