Smarter textbook-purchasing decisions for college students

[RCarzo]

No longer will students buy textbooks (overpriced ones, of course) that go unused. Those days are over. BookDecay.com helps college students avoid unnecessary textbook purchases by providing a place for peers to discuss how professors use their "required" materials. After reading reviews, students will also be able to use the site to purchase the books they need.

The site is currently in it's initial stages. A beta version will be rolled out very soon. Looking for additional programmers to work on the project. If anyone is interested in joining this start-up, please refer to the e-mail at the Book Decay site.

Look forward to making many great connections through these forums.

Good luck to everyone,

Rocco Carzo

"Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture."
-Lydia M. Child

[iPhoneUnlockingShop]

Hey - This is great! Being a student myself, I know the pains of buying textbooks. The only thing is, will the books be cheaper than websites like eBay, Amazon etc?

Good luck!

[RCarzo]

There is no guarantee the textbooks would be cheaper. However, if students learn they don't need certain books they will be saving a lot more money; the books will cost them ZERO.

Several methods will exist to purchase textbooks from the site: Students can either click links from our site that will lead them to Chegg, Amazon, eBay, Half.com, etc. or they can post their books for sale in a classifieds section that will allow them to sell (and/or possibly exchange) their books with other students at their school.

[experimentjon]

Quick question. How would you get the critical mass necessary for this to work? I've always found it easiest to just ask friends who have taken the course to find out whether the textbook is actually necessary.

Good luck with your business!

[RCarzo]

Appreciate the question, Jon. Our site would do exactly the same thing you do with you friends -- it will allow students to comment on whether or not books for certain classes should be purchased. So, instead of having one opinion on whether or not to make a purchase, there will be several reviews...all located on the site for easy access. We want to help students band together to avoid having to make unnecessary purchases on overpriced books. (But if the book is used in a way that suits a person's learning style, he/she is encouraged to purchase it -- through one of the several methods available on our site.)

The current information landing page can be found at: Bookdecay[dot]com. I'd love to continue this conversation; any feedback is gladly welcomed.

Please let me know if I've answered your question.

Best,
Rocco

[Knollege]

Rocco

I agree that textbooks can be the biggest waste of money for students. Is your site going to be member based or sorted by schools so students can see reviews written by people they know and trust. Goodluck with the site I just started a .com for college students, we are in the beta phases now. Where are you from. Feel free to email me to discuss this more if you'd like

[RCarzo]

Thanks for the feedback!

The reviews on the site will be school-specific, and therefore will be provided by students at particular schools -- so, as you suggested, students will see reviews by people they (in all likelihood) do trust. Make sense?

Good luck to you as well. Checked out your site -- pretty cool! I'm currently located in Rochester, NY. And you?

[Knollege]

I am located in Maryland...our site is in the process of being changed over to a new layout. We have been discussing the idea of some form of a textbook features on our site, but not so much down the review line but I think that is not a bad way to go for you all because I have not seen anything similar out there.