
July 19, 2010 – Across the United States, Americans are using classifieds websites to counter the current economy’s negative impact on their ability to buy and sell goods and services. The impact on U.S. college students in particular has caused students to turn toonline classifieds as they seek new ways to fund their higher education.
Rising textbook prices
Many college and university courses require students to pay $100 to $200 each semester for one textbook. This recurring price range is due to the fact that new editions of existing textbooks are published each year, providing a loophole for publishers to constantly quote high prices. While book stores do allow students to resell their textbooks back to the stores, the reselling value often drops to only 35% to 50% of the original cost.
As a result, textbook costs coupled with increasing college tuition have caused more students to consider classifieds websites as a less costly alternative for buying and reselling their textbooks. On classifieds websites, students can find or locally advertise textbooks for sale at the prices they choose.
Growing cost of gas
During the academic year, most students live on campus away from home, returning home only on weekends, holidays, and during their semester breaks. During these breaks from classes, students typically travel home by carpool because many cannot afford a car and associated gas prices in addition to college payments.
As college and gas expenses rise due to current economic conditions, less students are driving. Therefore, more students are taking advantage of the rideshare/carpool categories on classifieds websites to successfully locate local carpool opportunities. By using online classifieds, students looking for a ride home can advertise their need for transportation and receive responses from people locally who can provide this service. Likewise, a driver can advertise a road trip and receive responses from potential passengers.
Increasing unemployment
While several students at each school are awarded scholarship money every year to fund their education, many more students must hold part-time jobs to pay for classes. However, as U.S. jobless claims continue to increase, job opportunities are decreasing.
Therefore, many students are searching for jobs on classifieds websites where local businesses advertise their job openings for free. With online classifieds, students can browse various categories relating to different job openings, and advertise their resumes and job needs.
More classifieds
Online classified ads function like local newspaper classified ads. However, with classifieds websites such as Locanto Classifieds, people can post their ads for free and reach a larger audience via the Internet. Online classified ads are also published for a longer period of time than newspaper classified ads which last until the next newspaper issue is printed. Furthermore, classifieds websites allow people to edit, renew, or delete their ads at anytime, whereas newspaper classified ads cannot be changed or removed once they have been printed. Online classifieds benefit college students more than newspaper classifieds by connecting students with cheap and lasting local solutions for textbooks, transportation, and employment. Additional areas in which college students can benefit from online classifieds are in categories catering to the following needs:
Find free stuff
Apartments for rent
Receive tutoring
Locate storage space
On classifieds websites such as Locanto, all local classified ads for goods, services, wants, and needs are posted by local members of a city or town community. People can also share their ads with their community by using a variety of social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, the more active members of a community there are present on a classifieds website, the more solutions college students can find within that community to save money and fund their education.