Stanford Bookstore

I would give zero stars if I could. I ordered Christmas presents on December 6. I received them January 13 and had to mail them to my nephew. Needless to say, I did not have a Christmas gift for my nephew. It took 5 weeks to mail out tech gloves! I got some lame email about the heavy volume of orders. Really, its Stanford. You can’t mail out gloves in a timely manner. This is the absolute last time I will order anything from Stanford Bookstore. I will be sure to tell everyone I know about my experience.

This place is extremely, extremely overpriced.
I mostly just despise the fact that I lost over hundreds of dollars on their overpriced textbooks as a college student here before I realized that torrenting electronic copies online for free or buying cheap used versions on amazon was a much better deal.
Like, seriously? Making money off of poor college students? Tsk tsk.
Only benefit is the café upstairs which can be a nice place to sit down and do work. But please, don’t buy stuff here unless you’re rich and money is not an issue.

this review is for the website: i ordered rose bowl items on ¹²⁄₂₈ for next day delivery. they arrived on ¼. so i emailed «customer service» asking for a refund three days ago and still haven’t received a response. i sort of assumed the stanford bookstore might get the whole e-​commerce thing… i mean surely someone associated with stanford is familiar with the internet?!

Was open during break and was able to pick up gifts for my family here.
Had sticker shock over some items ($ 95 tote bags?! yikes!) but in the way back on the top floor there were some great bargains in the clearance racks. Just be careful to sort and double check all the sizes– some shirts marked as Mediums were XS and hanging on incorrect hangers in the wrong sized areas.
Got a bunch of cute tshirts for around $ 20 each.
Tons of RoseBowl merchandise in the front.
Wish there were some more dog accessories: P
Free parking on the weekends– park in Tressider Union parking lot at 459 Lagunita Dr and walk about 200 m across campus, by the fountain and you will be at the bookstore. There is a map right next to Tressider lot to show you where to go.
Go Cards!

I ordered a sweatshirt online. It’s been two weeks and I haven’t heard anything. I’ve called numerous times, no answer. I’ve emailed, no response. I would’ve expected more from such a prestigious university. NEVER ORDER FROM THEIR ONLINE STORE!

Finally writing a review of this place. I’ve worked on campus for over 6 years and definitely took this place for granted. They consistently provide friendly service, clean store, and knowledgable staff.
They were absolutely stellar last week though. Every year, Stanford Bookstore provides a «Faculty and Staff Appreciation Event» in which everything is sold to faculty and staff at 20% off. Of course, I want to take advantage of that. I finished up my Xmas shopping for family at a nice discount. That’s not all! They also provided free gift wrapping and super friendly service no matter how busy they were.
They, just like every place on this campus, aims to be the best at what they do. I will always appreciate their great customer service and will not take them for granted again.
Cheers Stanford Bookstore!

The school is such a gorgeous place to visit and walk around if you are in the San Francisco area. I love visiting schools just to see the type of students it accepts and the campus itself, and the whole vibe of the school.
Of course I had to get a souvenir from the bookstore! Trevor at the bookstore had such excellent customer service. He stayed open later and even help us to find exactly what we were looking for!

I’m giving this place 3 stars because I paid $ 10 for literally one deck of cards. That is a little unreal — I don’t care if they’re a Stanford Set or whatever, $ 10 for a single deck of cards is ridiculous and I’ll never be a fan of places that overprice for the sake of «prestige» or whatever. It was nothing special.
Anyway I did think the place was huge! It was really beautiful to walk in and see all the things that a bookstore could hold. There was a whole clothes section on the bottom floor and a café on the second. Books everywhere! It was so hard for me not to get distracted on my goal for what I needed to buy in the first place. All the staff was nice in helping me find what I needed (even the girl at the café helped me out!) and I was quick in and out with everything. Great for new visitors and people who are students because there’s so many places to sit and read or relax. In the heart of campus too the location was great! I don’t think I’ll be back again anytime soon since I have no reason to, but it was a cool experience.

This place is without a doubt an amazing place to settle down and relax. The bookstore, bustling with visitors downstairs in the apparel section, has very calm and serene atmosphere upstairs, where the café and books are located. The menu at the café isn’t shabby at all. Stanford’s bookstore offers a great variety of books that would please any reader. Even better, the bookstore provides quick, reliable wifi connection, so do bring your laptops if you ever plan doing some work on your laptop.
I have to agree with some of the other reviews; the apparel is overpriced. The bathroom wasn’t sanitary as I would expect from Stanford. Despite this, the bookstore is still a great place to visit.

Fully functional bookstore. I meant if I was a Stanford student I probably would grab some useful textbook from here. Just maybe.
As a tourist and first time the only thing that would expect from here is some sort of souvenir that worth this once in a lifetime memory. I searched the whole store but found nothing SPECIAL. Same sort of souvenir you bought else where instead here has some «Stanford» emblem. That’s is.

Nice interior, good café, rather fun to browse. The apparel store is extremely comprehensive — although very expensive–
and there are lots of mildly interesting knicknacks and amusing gimcracks you can buy as gifts for others.
The book selection has been vastly reduced in favor of the clothing section, because apparently the store can make more money this way. I find this rather cynical, but the entire operation has been farmed out to a completely independent thid-​party commercial entity, so profitability usurps any Stanford pride.
There’s some classy Stanford regalia and many obscure academic texts, as well as a broad magazine selection.
Basically, it’s a souvenir shop for visiting tourists and parents.
There is nothing for sale here that could not be purchased for 40% less on the Web or at a bookstore 5 miles away. Even
Walmart now sells Stanford apparel!
It’s still worth a visit, especially for a coffee and pastry on the second floor bistro. Your review helps others learn about great local businesses.
s.

Summary: never get your computer serviced here and never order your textbooks here
Some of the worst service I’ve ever encountered. In the past two weeks, I’ve had to order textbooks and get my computer serviced at the bookstore. They told me the textbooks would take two business days to arrive. It took 5 business days, which meant that I couldn’t do the readings for a class for an entire week.
The computer service was significantly worse. If your computer is broken, never take it to the bookstore. I brought my computer in on a Tuesday for a hardware issue. It took until Friday to get a quote. I went in that Friday and paid for the service. Again, they told me it would take two business days for the part to come in. Two business days later (the next Tuesday), I went back in to ask when it would be ready since I need my computer to do schoolwork. They had lost my receipt and hadn’t even ordered the part. Unacceptable, especially at a school like Stanford where you basically can’t do any work without a computer (I have a Computer Science assignment due Friday that I need a computer for). They made me bring my receipt in and didn’t even apologize for their mistake or make any effort to accommodate me. We’ll see where we are in two more business days, but safe to say I’m never getting my computer serviced there again or recommending it to anyone.

Nice bookstore. Lots of t-​shirts and souvenirs.
Downside is that it’s hard to find because there’s not a lot of maps around. Also, some of the apparel is overpriced, but we still found a great deal in the clearance section.
Bookstore is modern and clean, but not a lot of employees to help with questions.
Definitely worth a stop if you visit the beautiful campus.

Many years ago, I visited Stanford via a high school class field trip. Being the book lover that I am, I was bummed at not being able to visit one of the largest university bookstores in the country.
I finally got to go in today because we brought our Sunday youth class here on a field trip. While the amount of Stanford gear is understandable, it just takes away from the bookstore experience. Harvard has a better book store, in my opinion – four floors of books! The number, and selection, of books of the Stanford bookstore can be improved. But, at least it is better than a lot of other university bookstores (and other bookstores, for that matter).

Like every school, they have a bookstore. Stanford’s bookstore is located in a pretty central location on campus, near the main quad and the student center. When you first walk up the steps there are occasional outdoor tents with massive sales (50−75% off)).
There is a large assortment of apparel and gear. There are three floors.
Main floor: The main floor has stanford branded apparel, general books like you’d find in a bookstore, as well as stanford souvenirs and trinkets. Pretty standard stuff.
Bottom floor: The bottom floor contains all of the school supplies you need for class, as well as the books for each class at Stanford.
Top floor: The top floor contains a café, more books of various subjects (geared towards adults and specialized learning), and a technology center. The technology center has special discounts for students and stanford affiliates on laptops, electronics, and other tech products.
Expert tip: Don’t forget to bring your own bags because they charge .10/​bag.

I didn’t go to Stanford, and I know the vast majority of the people in Palo Alto didn’t go there either. I guarantee all of the yokels wearing Alabama gear didn’t go to Alabama as well. But, honestly, who cares if you went there? Who doesn’t like a good college t-​shirt?
This store literally has everything. They have an entire football field sized floor of clothing, another floor full of textbooks, and then a loft full of school supplies and tech gadgets. If you can’t find something cool at this store (whether as a student or a visitor), then you aren’t frequenting this store right.
Some complaints I have about this store are the directions that show up on Google Maps take you to the service entrance around back of the main entrance. There was also a crowd that was unbearable at times. Some areas of the store had restricted movement because of the large number of people. The last issue was with the checkout process. The line was excessively long and extremely slow. It all came down to the fact that there were very new people running the cash registers and most of them were older than Stanford University itself.
Overall, great place for a visitor to stop for an item to help them remember their trip to Stanford.

Ah, the Stanford Bookstore. Anytime I have friends or family who visit, I can guarantee that they’ll want to come to the bookstore and buy something with «STANFORD» on it. I guess it’s not such a big deal when you see it everyday but it’s a nice place to grab some coffee, grab a (last minute) textbook or browse computer stuff.
I did happen to pick up a nice (past season) Macbook Pro and AppleCare for less than what I would at the actual Apple Store or online. They sometimes will have specials and bundle computers with printers.
Overall it’s a nice place to have on campus.

It is nice to get Stanford goods for friends back home. I don’t buy Stanford pencils for me but bought running pants here. It is nice because people talk to me friendly while I am running with them.
I also bought Macbook here. Nothing very special to buy here, but it’s nice to buy computer close by.

Although they offer a wide selection of books, no one usually comes here to buy the latest best seller.
Tourists come here for the great selection of Stanford gear and items. If you wanna represent Stanford when walking around, this is the place to go.
Students come here for the convenience of their Computer/​electronics section upstairs and their course books/​school supplies downstairs.
The computer section offers expensive, but convenient laptops as well as hard drives, software (like MatLab), speakers and even some game systems and tablets. If you buy their stuff, they even offer free repairs if you aren’t computer savvy (but that seems pretty rare at Stanford where Computer Science is the largest major…).
The books below are organized by course. Just bring your semester schedule, and they’ll have all the books your courses require. Makes buying course books such an easy process.

The Stanford Bookstore is not, I suppose, a perfect bookstore. It’s giant, with a sort of corporate feel, the atmosphere a bit lacking in character. That said, it is a university bookstore serving a giant campus that is said, unfairly, I believe, to resemble an enormous Taco Bell. I spent some happy years at Stanford, and during that time, I visited this bookstore on a very regular basis.
Like most students, I spent most of my money here downstairs, on textbooks. I actually loved buying my books every quarter. The books were separated by department, and I never bought my English books without browsing the reading for other classes. I ended up buying off syllabi for classes I found interesting but never took, and this was a great way to supplement my literary education. Other departments offered less interesting browsing, but textbooks were readily available and easy to find, usually with used options.
The main floor of the bookstore offers a full selection of fiction and non-​fiction, with what I’d guess is a wider range than your average local bookstore, whether chain or independent. I loved browsing the fiction shelves during my time here, and I bought quite a few books from the display tables and among the many tall shelves.
The back of the main floor and the third floor of the bookstore serve a different purpose altogether. There, you can buy Stanford gear, from tree paraphernalia to license plate frames to neckties. I’m wearing a pair of Stanford pajama shorts right now. I’ve had them since college, and they’ve held up just fine. The third floor also holds a small electronics store and a coffee shop, both of which I frequented a couple times over the years.
Service is great — there are always a number of cashiers working, and they move things along quick and friendly. When I was a student, there was a low-​tech stamp card sort of deal for non-​textbook book purchases. I think every ten purchases got you $ 10 off, or something like that. I don’t know if the bookstore still does this, but that was nice.
Since I graduated, I’ve found a few independent bookstores I love dearly. I have a neighborhood bookstore where the people know me and my dog by name. The Stanford Bookstore is not that kind of store. Still, I feel a great amount of affection for this place. I will never visit campus without stopping in for a browse, at least for old times’ sake.