About Us
The Text4Swap.com Purpose
Textswap.com was created out of concern for the high cost of college textbooks. Recognizing the issue has for years been a nuisance for almost all college students, despite their socio-economic background, the site was developed to allow students to collaboratively take action against the great injustice surrounding the trading of college textbooks. Thus, the site allows students to swap their textbooks with other swappers in the network without having to make any purchases. This is made possible through the site’s ‘smart swap’ functionality which searches for exact book-for-book matches based on the books each swapper list he/she intends to swap off and the books he/she wants to swap for.
Students Fulfill the Purpose
Therefore, students have the ability to enhance the site’s functionality simply by making as many fellow students as possible aware of the site. In doing so, the likelihood of the system finding exact matches is increased and the hassle of having to sell and buy books each semester is eliminated to one easy step.* In the event exact matches are not found swappers can also make offers to other swappers who have the books they need. Therefore, students have full control, and more leverage to choose what they pay for their textbooks, as Text4Swap.com allows them to negotiate and bargain on their own terms.
Text4Swap.com Makes it GREEN to Save
Swapping involves the exchange of used textbooks. When students swap their textbooks through Text4Swap.com they can save hundreds of dollars each semester. In addition to saving money, students are reducing their carbon footprint because they are helping to keep textbooks in circulation for a longer period of time than would be the case if they were trading their books traditionally, that is continuously buying and selling. A longer life cycle of textbooks amounts to less trees having to be destroyed to process the paper needed to make new books.
You may ask the question, how is swapping more effective in extending the life cycle of textbooks compared to the usual buying and selling? Our answer to that is students most times go through various inconvenient and/or unfair processes to sell their used books. These processes include selling books back to college bookstores for a small percentage of the books’ retail value, having to wait for long periods to receive payment for books sold online, etc. These and many other unfavorable means of selling textbooks in many instances result in many students keeping or throwing out their textbooks after they finish using them. Thus, the books are taken out of circulation, making it necessary to make new ones to meet students’ demands.
Text4Swap.com allows students to ACT GREEN
Text4Swap.com commends, and holds in high regard the effort of each student who contributes to creating a better environment by swapping textbooks. Nonetheless, we recognize today’s students prefer to be active contributors to effecting positive change to the environment, and not just mere observers of the work being carried out by others. Therefore, Text4Swap.com also returns 10% of the service fees collected from each school for students to preferably create and execute environmental protection, and development projects. In other words, if 500 students from one campus use Text4Swap.com, 10% of all the service fees collected from those 500 students will be donated to that specific campus.
* A popular question asked by many people who we have shared the idea of book-for-book swapping with is, what happens in the event the book they are swapping is worth more than the one being swapped for? See our answer under “So what if your book is worth more? ”