New Website Swoops in On Textbook Prices

It’s a problem that college students deal with every year: incredibly expensive textbooks. And no, it’s not because college students are “cheap.” According to College Board, the average student at a four-year public institution spends $1,137 on textbooks each year—only to return most books for a minimal profit come summer time.

Each new semester, students face a dilemma: Do I lay down the cash for books, hunt down the cheapest book on the Web, or worse, simply forgo buying books at all and rely on other means to pass important courses? Thanks to SwoopThat.com, a new La-Jolla based website built by recent college graduates, students may no longer have to choose between lesser evils.

SwoopThat allows students to search for the textbooks they need at the cheapest price, all within 10 minutes. Rather than obtain the book's ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and visit dozens of websites to compare prices, students simply select their college or university and their courses and click “Find Books.” SwoopThat then returns its recommendations for the cheapest book that students need. They also provide price comparisons for new, used and rental books.

“You can save money and time simultaneously, with the time element really being key,” Co-Founder and Vice President Benjamin Carson said. “You can save as much money as you would if you were to type all of your ISBNs, but this takes 10 minutes instead of three hours, which is what really makes it special.”

Since its beginning a little more than a year ago, SwoopThat has added course information for more than 2,300 schools nationwide, making it a viable source for a large amount of the student population. The quartet, which includes Carson, co-founder and CEO Jonathan Simkin, Director of Technology Kevin King, and software engineer Dan Halloran, saw a great need for a cheaper outlet. Armed with degrees in business, computer technology, and law, the group begin working on the site.

“I think my favorite part of this has been watching the company grow,” Carson said. “I wanted to form a reliable company that could do some good for society. … It’s a very exciting feeling knowing that all of our hard work went into helping this company grow.”

And grow it has. Now entering the second full school year, the site has had more than 10,000 unique visitors this semester alone, and has generated nearly $200,000 in textbook sales. One user, USD law student and former La Jolla Country Day student Cameron Weiss once spend $880 on a single semester of textbooks and welcomes the value that SwoopThat provides.

“Retail is retail, but there is really the feeling that some schools are taking advantage of a nearly captive market,” he said. “Sites like SwoopThat could very well be the first step to keeping this in check, and it’s great.”

In addition to selling books online, SwoopThat features a student book exchange so that students can buy from other students. In the future, they hope to add a buyback feature as well, giving students a greater return on the investments they make at the beginning of the semester.

“There is really an impressive amount of variety. All books, for all courses, including e-books—which are really going to be making up a much larger piece of the pie in the next few semesters,” Weiss said.

In an effort to stay true to its mission, which was to create a company that provides value to society, SwoopThat also gives back to student associations and universities. By “creating a fundraiser,” various student clubs and organizations can build their own product search engine for free and receive cash back on purchases made through that specific site. SwoopThat has already built an individualized site for the UCSD Associated Students, who will receive money back to use for programs and events.

“We’re really seeing this website take off and it’s very exciting,” Carson said. “In the long run we hope this will be the leading nationwide service for students seeking to sell and buy textbooks.”