The website will be named www.booktrader.com. The name is simple and easy to remember. It can easily be searched by a search engine. .
For the first year the amount of money generated will be low because we are only operating our business in a few colleges. Our sales numbers will be higher in March, June, August, September, December and January because that is when students will be starting and ending school. BookTrader forecasts book sales will fluctuate when students are in school. Students will not be actively seeking books for the current quarter but students might list older books. .
BookTrader was launched for college students to sell and trade textbooks online. They also have the option to give their books away for free. In order to raise money to run our web page, we will be charging a $5.00 fee for listings. This will also be part of a service charge to help them find a book buyer or trader. We will also work with schools to build our business. We will advertise on school bulletin boards, flyers, and school newspapers. Once our business is established we will market and expand to book readers and other colleges.
As former students we know how much books can cost every quarter. We also know how long students have to wait in bookstore lines in order to get books for classes. BookTrader was created to fill an under-served niche market. The benefit to college students is that they will be able to find books that they will be able to afford. They can also get rid of books that they don't want anymore. .
BookTrader's competitors include university bookstores, retail bookstores, online textbook retailers, and online sites that target college students. One of our main competitors is Amazon. Amazon has a trade-in book program where students can receive a gift card for their used textbooks. BookTrader allows customers to receive cash for their used books. In order to compete with Amazon, we charge a flat $5.