When you talk about being a part of the Web 2.0 or the mobile arena, speed and convenience is what should be readily available. Same should be applied to buying books, those academic or general books on any subject. Book.ly is another startup that ensures that a college student finds the books he is looking for at one place at the most convenient of rates.
Here’s the catch, Book.ly promises to assist students by finding their required books and save up to 40% in price. Now that is a huge sum you save given the fact an average college student would spend over $700 on books each year and that saves him $280, which is quite a big amount. Now, this isn’t some random cheap bookstore aggregator that gives you links to external stores where you can buy books, rather it partners with numerous clubs, campus organizations in a university. The partnership is based on profit sharing, where Book.ly shares up to 20% of profits with a charity or even the club itself.
On the home page itself, you can search books availability based on university search, by book name, author or the ISBN. The University search also has suggestions if the letters you type match of the universities in their database. You can also sell your old books on the site, those that you no more need and can be bought for cheap by a student looking for a cheap bargain. There are more than 500 universities that supported at Book.ly and given how useful it is, more universities will soon be added. Just incase your school isn’t added, you can request them to try and add your college or school by sending them an email [it is just for the US for now I suppose].
In my opinion, the startup is based on a clever idea, it addresses a much important problem and targets students who are always up for something that helps them with studies and saving a few bucks. Other than that, they can always earn back some cash byre-selling the books on the site as well.
