Buying and Selling Texbooks

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
1

<p>I'm just curious to what everyone thinks about the textbook situation at University of Michigan. Everyone I've talked to says they've had a horrible experience with how textbooks are exchanged at Michigan.</p>

<p>At the start of each semester, you have a couple of different options:</p>

<p>1) Buy from Ulrich's - While this is always a reliable choice, you can get seriously screwed over by Ulrich's. And that's mostly because they charge an unreal amount of money for textbooks and offer little to nothing when buying them back.</p>

<p>2) Buy from online - This is a far better choice than buying from the campus bookstore, because textbooks online tend to generally cheaper.</p>

<p>3) Rent from online - This is my personal favorite, because I don't worry about the hassle of trying to sell my textbooks at the end of the semester</p>

<p>And then there's a 4th option - which is to buy textbooks from other students at Michigan. This is really a hit or miss, because the process is so unpredictable. Right now, what's happening is people are posting on Facebook groups about selling a certain book for a certain class, but within minutes their post is buried in the 1000 other posts selling textbooks/football tickets. That's REALLY frustrating...</p>

<p>Sooo, this past september, my friends and I went to Mhacks and developed a website, iOS, and Android application to help Michigan students exchange textbooks/sports tickets. It's hooked up to the Michigan course database, so you don't have put a post on Facebook and wait for someone to respond. You can just click on a specific class and see who's buying and selling textbooks for that class!</p>

<p>And if no one is selling a book for that class in your price range, you'll get notified when someone IS selling what you're looking for...</p>

<p>iOS: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blue-exchange/id948035804?ls=1&mt=8"&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blue-exchange/id948035804?ls=1&mt=8&lt;/a>
Android: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.baid.mxchange.m_xchange"&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.baid.mxchange.m_xchange&lt;/a>
Website: <a href="http://blueexchangeapp.com"&gt;http://blueexchangeapp.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I'm just curious to think what other Michigan students think about this? Is this something that would be useful? It's still its early stages, so we're still working to make it work and look it's best, but we're not quite there yet. Any improvements that can be made? Any additional features that would be useful?</p>

<p>Love to get some feedback. </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Wow, this is impressive. I am just a hopeful Wolverine, but I think it’s really cool you and your friends took the initiative to create this.</p>

3

<p>The Michigan difference I guess!</p>

4

<p>It’s a great idea, and one I will certainly try this semester. Thank you for the work and for the post because I was unaware of this until I saw it here.</p>

<p>There are a couple options you missed, 1 would be the campus bookstores (Barnes and noble), not a great deal but generally better than Ulrich’s.</p>

<p>The other, and perhaps someone you could work with to further your app, is the Engineering book swap that takes place every semester. Here is the announcement from my email last semester:</p>

<p>Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society is hosting a Book Swap event from September 2-5. The Book Swap allows students to sell their used textbooks from previous semesters as well as buy books from other students at low prices. With high textbook prices being a problem for many students, this event is a great way to buy textbooks at a reasonable price. Please see attached flyer for more information.</p>