College students searching for cheap textbooks might surf Craigslist, eBay and Amazon.com rather than rifle through aisles at campus bookstores, but a new website claims to give Ohio University students a better deal.
College Middle, a free, Dayton-based website, offers a way for students to sell their textbooks to other students who are on the same campus.
Students looking to buy a textbook through collegemiddle.com can use a credit card or PayPal account to pay online and meet up with the student who is selling the textbook in person somewhere on campus.
Unlike reselling books through a campus bookstore or other websites such as Amazon, the seller gets to keep all the money that he or she asks for, which generally means the buyer will usually spend less for the textbook, said Joe Lammers, OU alumnus and founder of College Middle.
College Middle adds more to the price of a textbook to collect a profit from the sale, Lammers said.
“We take five percent off the sale of the book,” he said. “When the book sells, it sells 5 percent more than what the book is listed for.”
Students from the University of Dayton, Wright State University and Sinclair Community College have already been able to use the site, and OU was recently added to the list.
The idea of having a resource such as College Middle available to students would be convenient to trade books with peers, said Tyler Stallings, a senior studying psychology.
“I would definitely use it,” he said. “I’m selling books on eBay right now, but it’s kind of a flop.”
However, the deterioration of textbook value after time makes selling textbooks through College Middle seem less attractive, said Lauren Fried, a sophomore studying marketing. She also said that if College Middle were like Chegg.com, which pledges to give sellers more for used textbooks, it would be worth considering.
“If you don’t get the value of the book back, it’s too much of a loss,” she said.
Whether students support College Middle or not, it could be a safer alternative for students opposed to other online textbook retailers, Lammers said, adding that students can pay online rather than carrying cash when meeting someone to buy a book.
If students would like more information about the site, they will have an opportunity to ask questions in early December, when College Middle representatives will visit OU to assist students in pricing books and answer questions, Lammers said
“We try to get students the best price they can get,” he said. “A bookstore doesn’t have to do that for them.”
kf398711@ohiou.edu
