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Keeping money in students’ pockets

Sometimes it takes a big disappointment to spark a great idea. That’s what happened to University of Lethbridge alumni Bryan Seaborn.

A recent U of L business school graduate, Seaborn and a friend lost a significant amount of money on the resale of their expensive textbooks last year. It’s never great for struggling students to be out cash, but it sparked an idea to start a website called soldbystudents.com.

“Cheaper than the book store, and us being students, if we can get discount prices and give everyone else some while we are at it it’s perfect,” said Seaborn, who launched the site in November 2009.

The site connects students who want to buy or sell goods, whether it’s textbooks, electronics like calculators and even vehicles. An Alberta-focused site, there are specific pages for SAIT students and students at five other institutions in the province.

“Students can post their books, and anything they want to sell, they can post it for free and it gives access to students (who) don’t have a lot of money if they can’t afford it at full price,” Seaborn said.

While it may sound like eBay or any other site where people buy and sell their cast-offs, there is a difference. “Ours is a little easier to use,” Seaborn said. “It’s based on everything school-oriented, not just general books for sale, it’s a specific area at school.”

So what’s in it for him?

Not much for right now, Seaborn said. His goal is to prevent students from being ripped off. Right now the website is not a real moneymaker, and any money it makes in the future will be put towards maintenance of the site, he said.

One of his most memorable moments was when someone contacted Seaborn through the site to give him props for what he’s doing.

Seaborn said he hopes the site will be used Canada-wide one day, and that it’s the first place students think of to buy and sell their school tools.

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