Saturday, January 28, 2012

So I Was Thinking....


As a college student, one of the most annoying processes that you have to go through (besides making the perfect schedule) is buying textbooks. Just the thought of looking up all your classes, figuring out the difference between the class number and the section number (who the hell knows the difference), walking through the aisles like a lost puppy looking for your section, etc. gives me a migraine. And of course that beautiful moment when, after standing in a line longer than the Nile River, the cashier rings you up and tells you that you've just spent your life savings on books you'll hardly look at. So when this assignment came up, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to figure out a way to help college kids, like myself, find the exact books that they need for the cheapest price possible. And from this revelation, "In A Bind" was born. It's an interactive site that searches the web for the cheapest prices on your books, based on the information you give it about your classes, and sends them directly to you with the push of a button. All you have to do is follow these simple steps:

  1. Create an account
  2. Enter the name of the university that you attend and tell us what classes you're taking
  3. Sit back and let us work our magic
  4. ....A Special Surprise!

Step 1: Who are you?

So this part is pretty self explanatory. All we need to know is some information about you. We'll ask the obvious stuff like name, address, birthday, etc. I know that personally I tend to get a little nervous about putting my information out there, but the information that you provide us will be used strictly by our team to make sure that you get your books in a timely manner.

Step 2: Who takes all your money?



This is the fun part. You're going to enter the university that you go to and the classes that you're taking. Now, I know that sometimes people never truly remember who's teaching their courses or what section that they are in. So, we're going to make it ten times easier for you. In order to make sure that you pick the right sections you can either (a) find out what section you're in and enter each section number one by one or (b) link your account with Blackboard (or a system like that) to your account and we can use the information from there. Easy right?

Step 3: Here's the magical part!

So now that you've done all that, it's our turn. We're going to take all of the information you gave us, and go on the ultimate manhunt. We'll search high and low, going through as many sources as we can (even through your schools own bookstore) to find the lowest prices (aka get you the BIGGEST bang for your buck). Once we've found everything that you need, we'll present it to you in a neat shopping cart showing you how much the book will cost if you buy it from us and how much it would be at normal retail price. From there you can choose which books you want to buy (whether it's all of them or just a few), and check out. VUALA, you're done!

Bonus Round!!

There's one more bonus to this site, aside from the amazing qualities that it already possesses. The first would be your account. If you decide to keep your blackboard site linked to your account, you won't have to log on to your site and make a new cart every semester because the site will automatically do that for you. All you have to do is log back in to your account and see what new inexpensive goodies we've put into your account! There's one more surprise. So let's say that you bought a book from us and you decide that you really don't want a book on Greek mythology or molecular biology sitting in your room. You can send it back to us and we'll give you an automatic 50% refund (and yes I am being serious).

So if you hate hassle and have more important things to do than stand in line or figure out how to pronounce the last name of your chem professor, then use "In A Bind" and get back to doing what college kids are supposed to do: partying, eating, and never graduating.

8 comments:

  1. Awesome post - i am pleased to see how you broke up the post with graphics and headings. As you develop this idea, definitely check out other sites like chegg and amazon to see how they bring this content together.

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  2. This would save me so much time and money. And being able to link it through blackboard would be great so you don't have to worry about not getting the right books. I also love that it will search the web to find the cheapest books for you so you don't have to waste time doing that. I think the idea of 50% back is great as well because so many kids lose lots of money buying books they don't need. Does that 50% refund have a time limit, like, if you don't use it in the first two weeks you can send it back and get that refund or is it all semester? Would you be able to sell back the books at the end of the semester after using them and get a refund as well?

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    1. This refund would be available all semester long. I know that sometimes a professor will make you buy a book and then tell you that you'll only use it once or twice (which sucks), so as long as we have a record that you purchased the book from us, then you get your refund.

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  3. Hey Lexi!

    Awesome idea! I, like you and many other college students, struggle with paying for textbooks, let alone buy the right books! This would definitely help, especially if there was an app for smartphones etc. One thing that I'm not sure though is if this does become really big how will you individually look for other people's textbooks if 1,000 people signup for your product? Maybe if your website/app automatically searched the cheap textbook rental/sale websites and somehow through programming matches everything up quickly.

    It's great though and would really help a lot.

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  4. This really is a fantastic idea. This would have a 1 up on Amazon because yeah, Amazon does have cheaper books than in the bookstore but they're not always the cheapest you can find. You also have to pay shipping on each book which can get frustrating. So I recommend you somehow make it so shipping only has to be paid once for all of the books to be sent to the buyer- but we can handle the shipping on sending it back for the 50% refund because that's totally worth it!

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  5. I really like this idea because it would save me so much time and money. I think this idea would be successful because there is a market of millions of broke college students looking for the best deal on their text books. I would just be curious about what fees you would charge the users of the site, would it be a fee per semester or would it depend on how many books you buy. Considering people would be using this site to save money I would make sure that the fee would be relatively inexpensive.

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  6. What a fantastic idea! Whenever I enter the SU bookstore to purchase my books for the semester, I always wonder if the price they are selling to me is the normal retail price or overpriced. I would definitely use this website so I can see what great deals are available to me on my textbooks. Saving money is key for college students and I can see this website being very successful!

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  7. This seems really interesting. There are many other sites that allow you to find your text books at the cheapest price but there isn't a site that allows you to find the cheapest books for your school specifically. I get tired of putting in ISBN numbers to find books only to realize i put the wrong one in or there is no record of the book which is even weirder. Being able to find the cheapest books by searching for classes it is a lot better then plugging in numbers.

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