Everyone has used or at least heard of eBay, but have you ever thought of using such a Web site for selling your college textbooks and getting the money for them that you deserve?
"I simply got tired of being ripped off by the bookstore," Georgia State University student Carlton Christianson said to me one day as I interviewed him for our school paper. "At the end of each semester, I would actually visit two of the main bookstores to see who would give me the most for my college books. In most cases, I ended up walking in 90 degree weather just to make around $3 extra on the price of my books."
Christianson told me he soon turned to buying and selling his college textbooks to students, bypassing bookstores altogether, and claims he saved up to 50 percent this way. This and other experiences fueled Christianson's frustration with campus bookstores and inspired him to create TradeStage.com. Christianson, a computer science major, is the founder of the new Web site that offers students an opportunity to make money by not only buying college books from TradeStage.com, but selling them as well.
TradeStage.com is like e-Bay for students: Once a free account is set up, you can conduct a state-wide search for the book of your choice and set up private transactions with sellers. Once you find the book you want, you can contact the seller via telephone or email to arrange the transaction and decide on the appropriate shipping arrangements.
If you wish to sell your textbooks via the Web site, all you have to do is create an account for a minimal fee. You, the seller, are then allowed to set your own prices, provide your own ads, and include a picture of the book. The site also conducts automatic searches for college textbooks on Amazon.com, in case a particular book cannot be found or is not being sold by a student.
TradeStage.com is not the only student oriented textbook Web site. While TradeStage.com only offers services to college students living in Georgia, CampusBooks.com offers a different route in the art of book buying on a national level. This Web site helps you to find textbooks by searching thousands of sellers and bookstores to help you compare prices, taxes, and shipping costs. If you wish to sell your textbooks, this Web site will help you compare buyback prices so you get back the maximum amount for your books. You can browse textbooks by subject to find the book you are looking for. Once you find the book, you can see what the book is going for and compare prices among sellers.
The sellers on this site are mainly other Web sites, such as Barnes&Noble.com, Amazon.com, and abebooks. Each seller gives the status of the book’s condition, price, shipping costs, taxes applicable, and shipping times. There are many Web sites such as these who make selling college textbooks easy and affordable. If you can, try selling and buying your books to fellow students first to see if you can save more money locally. Use both this and textbook Web sites to avoid the overpricing and underselling of your campus bookstore. I guarantee you will save more money this way.
By Kelley Caner