USG launches new site for buying, selling textbooks

The USG’s newly launched Princeton Textbook Exchange (PTX), which allows students to sell their used books, has already met with a great deal of success, Class of 2012 senator Becca Lee said. Already, 967 transactions have been requested by buyers, and 1,760 books have been offered on the site.

Unlike PTX’ predecessor, TigerTrade Books, “almost everyone has heard of the PTX,” Lee noted.

“Compared to Labyrinth, you can save hundreds of dollars just by buying from other students, and you can make money, too, by selling to other students,” Lee added.

Lee was a member of the USG Textbook Prices Working Group, which helped push for this new program. The website is based on a project undertaken by students in COS 333: Advanced Programming Techniques.

The USG planned to publish a list of required course materials on the internet before the start of classes, but it met with obstacles due to pre-existing contracts with Labyrinth.

“We decided that the best thing to do would be to revamp the TigerTrade Books website and make it more user-friendly and accessible,” Lee explained.

PTX is designed to make it convenient for students to sell books that are already being offered or books that have not yet been listed, Lee said. “If somebody has already listed the exact book you’re trying to sell, you don’t have to re-enter the title [and] author and upload the picture,” she explained. “If the book hasn’t been listed before ... all you have to do is put in the ISBN, and the website will search the internet … and load the description of it and all the information for you.”

The transaction is then arranged independently by the buyer and seller.

The PTX website also offers students the option of selling books that are not related to courses and has a wishlist feature that allows students to record those books they would like to purchase that are not currently offered. Once the book becomes available, the student will be notified, according to the website.

“Not only does [the website] make it easier for students to recycle and be more sustainable, but it also helps save and make money in tough economic times,” USG president Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10 said.

PTX has already seen significant traffic, Lee said, but it has met with mixed reviews from students.

Some students, like Arlyn Katen ’12, who has already purchased and sold books through PTX, praised the website, but others said that they would still probably purchase their textbooks from either Labyrinth or amazon.com for the convenience.

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“For now, I’m going to buy my textbooks from Labyrinth ... then I’m definitely buying the rest from Amazon,” Brandon Joseph ’12 said. “Once I actually see what exact books I need, I’ll probably be returning [the books from Labyrinth] in the next couple days.”

For Kate Scarpetta ’11, the ability to quickly obtain books from Labyrinth outweighs the outlet’s higher costs. “I’m usually so last minute that I’m forced to go to Labyrinth,” she said, adding that she sometimes goes online afterwards to “see how much I got ripped off.”

Scarpetta said, though, that she would “absolutely” consider using the new USG website to sell her old course books. “I hate Labyrinth. Their buyback policies suck,” she said. “You can get a fresh textbook and get, you know, paperclips for it ... I will never again sell my books back to Labyrinth. I actually gave [them] to other kids. I’d rather give [them] away so they don’t have to buy [them] from Labyrinth.”

Even some who have not yet used PTX to purchase or sell textbooks noted that they would definitely consider doing so in the future.

“I did hear about the USG program, but I haven’t really looked into it yet, and I’m not buying my books anytime soon,” said Veda Sunassee ’10, who usually purchases his books from Amazon.com after the first week of classes. “I’m going to compare the prices, and if it’s cheaper [on PTX], then yeah, why not?”

“I checked it out,” Joseph said. “I couldn’t find a lot of my books from last year, so I couldn’t sell anything, and I know some of the books were ... older editions,” he said. “I think it’s a program that probably needs a little more time to get in the swing of things. Once it’s settled and everything I’ll probably use it more.”

Katen noted that finding the right edition of a book could be difficult. “I think it would be better if editions were more specific when comparing prices,” she said, explaining that a range of prices were offered for a philosophy textbook she was considering, but the listings did not specify edition.

Lee explained that some textbooks are sold more often than others. “[Course books for] the classes that are offered every semester … have been really popular just because they tend to use the same books from year to year, and the turnover is really quick,” she said. “Classes that are being offered for the first time or not even on a yearly basis haven’t been as popular for buyers.”