For the frugal student, Half.com can be a more fun (and often cheaper) alternative than the university bookstore. Because the website was purchased by eBay, your eBay username and password – if you have an account – can be used on Half.com to order any of their products. Unlike Amazon, which has expanded into other product lines like sports and outdoors or health and beauty, Half.com only offers books, music, movies, video games and gaming systems. The system is set up incredibly well for a buyer who knows what he or she is looking for, and if you think that participating in an online auction is too troublesome, Half.com exists as a valuable substitute.
The site can also make recommendations based on past purchases and other information that you can fill out via a questionnaire. You can even pre-order certain items that have not officially come into the market. If a product is out of stock, you can add it to a wish list as well. Also, if you think that you might be able to find a cheaper price or better quality product on eBay, there is a link for every product that parallels the search with eBay’s search platform.
Sellers can rate the quality of the item they are selling in order to provide the buyer with an idea of what kind of product to be expecting. For example, if a textbook has writing in the margins or highlighted sections, it would probably be placed in the Acceptable category. Gaming systems, CDs and DVDs each have their own rating systems as well.