Type Private Website swoopthat.com | Founded 2009 | |
Industry Price comparison service, online textbook price comparison Headquarters San Diego, California, USA Key people Jonathan Simkin (CEO), Kevin King (CTO), Benjamin Carson (COO) | ||
SwoopThat.com is an online textbook price comparison service. Based in San Diego, California, it specializes in college textbooks but includes high school textbooks as well. The company's books by course search engine lets students input their class schedules, see all the required textbooks for those schedules, and find the cheapest online sources of those books. The search engine also includes a textbook exchange feature through which students can buy and sell books from other students. The website also includes a textbook buyback platform through which students can sell their textbooks back to online vendors. SwoopThat has been featured in the New York Times, on the website of the Today Show, on the website of Computerworld magazine, and the weblog lifehacker.com.
History and business model
SwoopThat was founded by students from Claremont McKenna College and Harvey Mudd College. It originally existed as a product search engine with an emphasis on local products and stores. It later shifted to a focus on textbooks based on a books by course model. It has since added course and textbook data from over 2,300 colleges in the United States. Through SwoopThat, students can compare prices for new books, used books, rental books, and ebooks.