A second-year Mechanical Engineering student at Tshwane University of Technology has developed an app that enables university student to buy and sell pre-owned books and stationery from or to other students free of charge or at a lower price.
This comes as thousands of South African students struggle to afford all their prescribed textbooks.
"The main aim was to help students save money on their textbooks and the app does that by creating a medium that enables students to buy books from their
fellow campus mates at a lower price The app also has a search engine which makes the process of finding books easier," said the developer of the Campus Store, Tebogo Serogole.
Serogale created the app with his friends Obakeng Mufuma and Ngcebo Myende.
Serogale told IOL TECH that he came up with the idea due to his own struggle of finding people who sold recommended books.
"The motivation behind Campus Store was based on my experience as a first-year student, usually engineering classes at TUT for first years started as early as the 3rd week of January and around that time, there were not a lot of senior students on campus which made it hard for someone like me to find people who were selling recommended books. So I thought of creating a platform that would connect buyers and sellers online.
"We currently have students selling books from Tshwane University of Technology, University of Pretoria and UNISA and we are encouraging more
students from other institutions to join the community of buying and selling affordable books on Campus Store."
Serogale started his programming journey when he was in high school. He created his first app when he was in Grade 9. It was a newsletter app that enabled schools to communicate with parents.
The student hopes to branch into robotics in the future.
The app can be used by students studying at any registered institution in SA including private institutions and TVET colleges.
How to use the app
- Download the app on Google Play store
- Create an account
For sellers
List the books on campus by answering a few questions and uploading preview images of the book that you plan to sell. Wait for potential buyers to contact them
For buyers
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Browse through books already listed by other students
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Contact the seller and complete the trade privately.
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If you cannot find the books you want, fill in the “Find me books” form on the app and the team will search for that book and contact them whenever it is available
The app is available for download on Google Play Store and and iOS version is currently under development.