Rent your books instead of buying them, and save the environment
Chegg.com is a service that may be a dream come true if you are a college student in the United States. They basically offer you a rental service for your college books. It’s a simple process. You can search for the books that you need and then place an order for their rental. The book is shipped to you, and you are welcome to use it. They even allow you to highlight in the books that are sent to you (but not write). Once your term is over, a pre-paid shipping pack is sent to you to return your book back to Chegg.
And what do you pay? Anywhere between 30%-70% of what the book would have cost you had you bought it new. If you are one of those who likes to use new books, you can even purchase a book from them, and then sell the book back to the service. They offer a guaranteed buyback policy for these types of purchases (of course the book must be in a usable condition when it is returned). You can even sell your old books to them.
What’s more, if you are the environmentally conscious type (if not, then you should be), you will be glad to know that you directly contribute to trees being planted when you do your business with Chegg.
And if you have any doubt of this business having success, then here’s a report on TechCrunch which talks about the company receiving further rounds of VC funding.