Wednesday, August 08, 2007

BigWords a Textbook Case for Comparison Shopping

Comparison shopping engines enable consumers to get the best prices across a variety of sellers, and when done right they can eliminate distribution inefficiencies.

Textbook publishing has been a cash cow for companies such as Macmillan and McGraw-Hill (a former employer of mine) who for years have worked with universities to control a near monopoly. Now that professors publish their syllabus online ahead of time and textbooks can be purchased online, the stranglehold on students paying $100 plus per book is loosening.

BigWords.com, which just re-launched with a Web 2.0 interface, has filled the comparison shopping need by enabling students to buy or sell new or used textbooks online through several services through a single query. While universities benefit by students over paying for textbooks, comparison engines will force the campus bookstore to be more competitive with online entities, so publishers will have to sell to them at better pricing.

Smart shoppers save significantly by using comparison engines, an industry that will only continue to flourish thanks to Web 2.0 technologies.

Posted By John Gartner at 10:50 AM
Permanent Link: BigWords a Textbook Case for Comparison Shopping | Comments (1)

(1) Comments on BigWords a Textbook Case for Comparison Shopping

Great article! I agree 100%. Price comparison engines are the way to go. I used them in college and it was definitely a lot better then geting ripped off at the bookstore. I current use SmartBookFinder.com: http://www.smartbookfinder.com as my comparison engine.

Comments by Adam : Friday, November 09, 2007 at 12:27 AM

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