TIS Group

Horrible customer service. Refused to take back my rental book at 6:01pm, when the store closed at 6. Stood inside the window and blatantly ignored me.

Honestly, it used to be better, when I was in school there, I think, because there was more apparel and more variety, but still a great bookstore, great benefits with it’s rewards, and a decent selection. The staff is hit or miss usually, but sometimes can be fabulous. Great location!

The selection of books and its location is nice, there is decent parking, but you pay for it in the full price on every book.
This store is not handicap friendly. When asking for help, the workers look like deer in headlights. I know they are mostly college kids, but it makes me wonder how people with so little ability to think made it to high school graduation let alone college.
Because I couldn’t physically get to the section I «had to go to» get my preordered books, I just ordered it online through another company. This could’ve been handled if someone had been willing to bring my bag of preordered books downstairs so that i could purchase them.

T.I.S. has the best local book buy back and text book prices locally. The only way to beat it is to do it yourself, online. Make sure you sign up for the rewards program too. I signed up when I first moved here and cashed out after I graduated. I ended up with $ 100 in gift certificates. It’s a great deal especially when you need your books, NOW! Also, this is the BEST place around to get IU shirts because they’re so cheap and have really good deals like buy 1 get 2 or 3 free! I’m a fan!

T.I.S. has the IUBookStore beat on textbook prices and book buyback rates, hands down. With their new rewards program, you supposedly can earn more back on books, however I have never gotten more than a buck or two back with my card, so I’m not sure that the program is that great. As for other items like shirts and other IU apparel, I would suggest Steve and Berry’s over T.I.S. The prices are better, and there is more of a selection.

While TIS offers lots of perks to shopping there, t-​shirt specials, an aggresive loyalty card program, good location, etc, I give TIS 1 star for a very specific, yet incredibly important reason… their draconian return policy. In fact, I would give them zero if we could on Unilocal.
I got a $ 30 book at TIS for a Spring class. Since I wasn’t sure about the necessity of the book, I inquired about the return policy and the person checking me out said that I had «one week». This was on Wednesday. I then attended the 2^nd session of this class on Thursday and found out that I did not really need the book. Since I was flying out of town on Friday, I didn’t not have time to return the book over the weekend… not that it mattered, since I was told I had «one week» to return the book. I was planning on returning it on Monday or Tuesday after I got back from my trip.
I go back to the TIS textbook section of the store to make a return for credit. I actually asked for credit, not cash mind you and was told that I could not because I had missed the deadline. Deadline? I was told that I had «one week». This person clarified the policy was returns are only good for the first week of classes. OK. So when she pointed this out on the receipt, that is what it said. But why would I scrutinize the receipt when the person working there told me «one week». Of course, this seemed like a reasonable argument for me to make. I reiterated that all I wanted was $ 30 store credit for a future purchase. The textbook person simply said no… then she tried to tell me about how it was expensive to ship books back and forth after the trucks were no longer allocated to do such things. I told her that it was not my fault and that I wanted to talk to the store manager to plead my case. At this point, she simply ignored me and decided not to pass me along to someone with authority/​critical thinking skills. I asked her to pull up my loyalty card profile so I could point out to her that I had already spent close to $ 2000 in just over one year at Indiana. She didn’t really care. I asked her to consider the fact that they would lose another $ 1000-​$ 2000 in business because of $ 30 store credit request. She clearly wasn’t interested. I began to think to myself that her parents must work for a bad government agency because she played the ignoring game pretty well. Anyways, I lost this battle and decided never to shop there ever again. AND be sure to post about it, and leave my complaints on my facbook profile, and tell all of my friends at Kelley how horrible of a store TIS Bookstore is.
The part that fires me up the most is that I shopped at TIS specificially to avoid going to the IU Bookstore. Not because TIS has better prices than the IU Bookstore, but because I wanted to support a local business in a misguided attempt to avoid supporting «the man». In the times we are in, you know, where the internet rules, where ANYEONE can purchase ANY textbook from suppliers from Asia who will sell us the same books for ¹⁄₅ the price as stores in the USA, I find it amazing and shocking that a store like TIS would have such customer hostile policies in place. I know this all stemmed from $ 30, and maybe I am being petty, but I have on rare occassion felt so mistreated by a business that I had been so loyal and given so much money to, and made concerted efforts to support. Since they know students cycle in and out every few years, I guess they have no incentive to gain true loyalty that cannot be measured on something other than a loyalty card.

Good place for books. I’ve never had a problem getting mine there. Bad place for school supplies… overpriced, but that’s really not the primary focus of the place. Very busy place at the beginning of the semester. Parking is limited.

Decent place to get books. They’re all damn expensive, but I can’t really blame them due to that fact that not only do I still buy them every year, but the people who produce them seem to think college students have an unlimited amount of money to spend on overpriced bundles of paper between cardboard covers.
Their return system is just as lenient as the school’s from what I understand, and they’ve always had all of the books that I’ve needed, so I have no gripes. They have an overpriced store on the bottom floor where you can get all your school needs, but I recommend running down 3^rd and checking out the Target if you really need something instead of paying an inflated price at TIS.