One of the main factors preventing students from getting the textbooks they need is cost. Students have long tried to get textbooks at lower costs by selling them to each other; after all, they usually don't need textbooks after courses.
What if we took money out of that equation? Swapsy proposes a new approach to the textbook economy.
- You have a textbook you want to sell, and you need a textbook for an upcoming course.
- Someone else has a textbook for your upcoming course, and they need your textbook.
- You put your preferred times and places for picking up and dropping off textbooks.
- You both log into Swapsy, and you post the books you have. Based on the book's market cost, you're awarded coins which you can use to buy other books.
- Swapsy finds a place that's convenient for you to meet and exchange textbooks!
Convenience: Swapsy provides all textbook information in-line, so that you know what you're getting. No more bouncing between websites to determine whether that textbook listing is legitimate.
Accountability: On unstructured textbook platforms, it's not so easy to trust that the investment you're making will be worth it. On Swapsy, users must use their real names, and rate each textbook they receive. You must stay above a certain rating to stay on the platform.
Transaction System: When a user posts a book to our platform, we provide them "swapcoins", which serves as a credit to buy other books. We are decentralizing this purchase process. Books are valued based on availability on our platform and other details retrieved from some web scraping. No need for money. We look to exploit the benefits of a barter system in Swapsy.