DIY textbook trading online

DIY Textbook Trading Online

Press Release Issued: Wednesday, 7 November, 2001

DIY textbook trading online

In a move timed to coincide with the end of semester two at tertiary institutions around the country, student portal Varsity.co.nz (www.varsity.co.nz) and online auction site Trade Me (www.trademe.co.nz) have launched a new textbook trading service for students.

Both sites now provide access to a dedicated section of Trade Me that caters for textbooks ( http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/ list_classifieds.asp?type=tosell&category=24). In addition, Varsity.co.nz will soon have a live XML feed from Trade Me running into a textbook section of its site, similar to that already in place in its Playstation games section ( http://www.varsity.co.nz/ps2/default.asp).

The textbook service provides a convenient method for students to maximize the return on their old books. Jeremy Hunt from Varsity.co.nz notes, “while students can sometimes sell their old textbooks to campus bookshops, they only receive approximately half of the book’s new price. These books are subsequently resold at 75-80 percent of the new price.”

“With many students spending over $500 on textbooks each year, there is clearly an incentive for them to recover as great a percentage as possible when their books are no longer required,” says Hunt.

Trade Me’s Nigel Stanford notes that, “To date attempts to provide dedicated textbook trading sites have struggled due to a lack of funding, traffic and viable business model, with most looking to advertising as their primary source of revenue.”

In contrast, Trade Me has an established and viable transaction-based revenue model and thousands of student users while Varsity.co.nz now consistently attracts over 1,000 unique visits per day. Furthermore, Varsity.co.nz has a team of part-time student employees that provide on-campus marketing capabilities at every university in New Zealand.

ENDS

For further information, contact:

Jeremy Hunt Varsity.co.nz 09 3766535 025 399539 jeremy@varsity.co.nz

Nigel Stanford Trademe.co.nz 04 4737955 nigel@trademe.co.nz

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