Students launch Web sites to connect college textbook buyers with sellers

University of Richmond sophomore Keaton Cristobal and a friend launched a nationwide, free textbook exchange Web site for college students last Wednesday.

The Web site, StudentsBulletin.com, resembles Craigslist.org in that it also provides a forum for exchanging appliances, electronics, furniture and housing. But Students Bulletin caters specifically to students and offers free registration and free textbook posting.

"I just thought of how people always want to sell stuff at the end of the year and how people get ripped off for their books," said Cristobal, a leadership major. "So we decided to make a similar Web site to craigslist but specific to colleges."

Cristobal said the enterprise, which he started with high school friend Michigan Yang, was most similar to Belltower Books, created by two Cornell University students. But Belltower only buys textbooks from students, whereas Students Bulletin allows students to buy and sell, creating a win-win situation, according to the Web site.

"Our main thing is just trying to get students to exchange the books or sell them to each other for cheaper, so all the students benefit," said Cristobal, who currently buys his books from Amazon.com.

Students Bulletin offers an alternative that is cheaper for buyers and more profitable for sellers because it eliminates the middleman of the Bookstore. It will also be easier to post items online rather than place paper fliers around campus, said Cristobal, mentioning a flier he'd recently seen attempting to sell a car.

Junior Katie Oxenhorn said the Bookstore was a monopoly and she would rather use Students Bulletin than pay $60 for a textbook and receive $3 for it at the end of the semester. Sophomore Natalie Conley agreed.

"I've always tried to find people to buy my books off of," Conley said.

Bookstore manager Roger Brooks acknowledged student textbook exchanges orchestrated by the student government 10 to 15 years ago but said most competition came from online sales. He said the exchange would be interesting to see but questioned its feasibility because of the change in courses and textbook editions from semester to semester. The pool of books would be very small, Brooks said.

Anticipating this issue, Cristobal said he and Yang planned to arrange for Belltower to purchase textbooks after an unsuccessful posting period. Students Bulletin also widens the exchange pool with a page for each college nationwide after clicking on a school's state on the main page.

Posting textbooks is free, but there is a $1 charge to post appliances, electronics and furniture and a $5 charge to post housing. Fees will supplement Google Web site advertisements to fund the site, which cost $500 to purchase the domain name and space online.

In addition to exchanging physical commodities, students can also exchange tutoring services, transportation and job openings. A calendar also enables students to post social events, such as tomorrow's Guster concert, Cristobal said.

Cristobal and Yang developed the idea during spring break. They designed the pages but recruited freelancer Salil Ghosh from Getafreelancer.com to build the Web site. They plan to manage the Web site themselves and advertise through Facebook.com and friends at other schools.

The friends' partnership traces back to an attempt to start a clothing company while at Staples High School in Westport, Conn., said Cristobal, who said he would like to start his own business in the future.

"I don't really want to work for anybody," Cristobal said.

Yang has taken real estate classes online while living in Westport and is currently studying for his life, health and accident tests to obtain his insurance license.

According to Yang, students can begin to register and post items to sell or exchange. Students are not permitted to run businesses on campus, but the Web site is not Richmond-affiliated, Cristobal said.

Students Bulletin is facing competition from Swaboo.com, a free on-campus textbook exchange Web site launched by three Richmond students about a month ago. The site -- a combination of the words "swap" and "books"-- allows students to buy and sell books on campus by providing a marketplace for people to find books, purchase or sell them, then arrange a meeting to exchange them.

One of the co-founders, David Whitehead, said that Swaboo.com enabled students to set their own prices and avoid shipping costs and waiting times associated with traditional used book buying. Users can also see price comparisons between a user's price and those set by top sellers, including Amazon.com.

"We are up and running with students already having listed plenty of books to swap," Whitehead said.

Contact staff writer Maura Bogue at maura.bogue@richmond.edu