BrunoBooks.com, a website founded by four Brown University students, claims to offer a cheaper alternative to the campus bookstore for students getting ready to purchase textbooks this semester.
“It’s a much better deal than Barnes ‘ Noble because that place has a total monopoly on selling books, and students should really open their eyes,” College of Arts and Sciences senior Allison Daboz Bosworth said.
Bosworth said she bought all of her books from BrunoBooks this semester and saved a lot of money in the process.
“Everyone knows textbooks are outrageously expensive and it’s tedious to buy books online,” BrunoBooks co-founder and chief executive officer Jesse Maddox said. “Our idea was to make it easier to buy books online and make it easy to compare prices with the bookstore.”
The website, which organizes textbooks by class, shows the percent savings on both new and used versions of the textbook. New books were approximately 10 to 20 percent less than competitor prices while used books were up to 75 percent less, Maddox said. The site also offers free shipping on orders of more than $25.
Maddox said he came up with the idea last semester for a class in which he had to write a business plan. He then co-founded the website with Brown alumnus Ari Goodstein and Brown seniors Matthew Prewitt and Jonathan Rhone. The website was launched Jan. 11 and has received more than a thousand hits so far, he said.
BrunoBooks currently caters to six schools: Boston University, Brown, University of Illinois, San Jose Sate University, University of South Carolina and the University of Texas at Austin.
“We chose schools primarily based on size, hoping that if we can achieve some buzz on a big campus, we will get a lot of sales,” Prewitt said.
Prewitt said a few more schools might be added to the list in coming weeks, but he has yet to make a public announcement.
“It’s tough to get people’s attention, but so far it’s gone well,” Maddox said. “It has definitely been a success.”
To gain student attention, the founders started a Facebook group detailing a contest in which students can win up to $300 in a Jan. 31 drawing. As of last night, the BU BrunoBooks group had 104 members.
Maddox said the prize money came from a friend who decided to invest in their company because he enjoys the challenge and excitement of launching a website.
College of Fine Arts sophomore Joe Malfettone said he would recommend the website to others because of the savings and convenience it has offered him.
“I saved $20 with only buying three books and they’re all new,” he said. “The site is also ordered extremely well through pull-down menus of colleges and classes. Plus, some of the Barnes ‘ Noble staff haven’t been too friendly to me lately.”