Student Book Sellers To Expand Operation

The Currier House juniors behind Redline Textbooks spent much of last semester’s shopping period with little time for sleep or class, instead packaging books late into the night and waking up early to meet promises of next-day delivery.

They succeeded in catching the attention of both Harvard students and the Harvard Coop and now are looking to expand.

Redline has abandoned its old policy of using the price differential in international editions to pass on savings, but it will continue to provide discounted textbooks to Harvard students in the spring by capitalizing on its low overhead. In an attempt to increase their customer base, Redline will continue to offer guaranteed next-day delivery, while adding a larger selection of courses and making delivery free.

According to executives at Redline—which was founded last fall by eight Currier house juniors—the company sold hundreds of books during the fall semester for a profit of approximately $6,500.

Redline Executives said they are planning to donate 10 percent of last semester’s profits to a charity called Light for All, which helps provide textbooks to schools in Haiti, and will donate 10 percent of this semester’s profits to a similar charity.

“The personal profits, per hour, are not very high,” said Andrew M. Mugica ’06, Redline’s Advertising Manager. “We don’t really do it for profit, we do it for experience.”

In addition to donating a portion of their proceeds, Redline Executives claimed to have saved customers more than $10,000 over the Coop’s prices, and had approximately 25,000 page views at their website, redlinetextbooks.com.

“It went very well, better than expected,” said Redline President Danny F. Yagan ’06. “Some people said that Harvard students don’t care about saving a few bucks, but I think we proved them wrong.”

Redline expects to increase sales with the offer of free next-day delivery and expansion from 16 courses to at least 20. According to Michael W. Reckhow ’06, Redline’s technology manager, the company will expand into departments including applied math, biological sciences, and psychology.

Redline will also stop selling international editions of textbooks. These editions are often available at deep discounts compared to domestic prices, but, according to Coop president Jerry P. Murphy ’73, most publishers have installed safeguards to prevent their books from being purchased outside of the United States and re-imported.

Redline executives wouldn’t say that this was why they had shifted their supply, but did acknowledge that the international versions can differ slightly from their domestic counterparts, and this was one reason for the switch.

“The books we offer will be the same books available in the Coop,” Reckhow said.

Even without selling discounted international editions, Redline still plans to offer prices significantly lower than those at the Coop.

“There are huge efficiency gains in our business model compared to the Coop’s,” Yagan said. “I think that more and more people are going to be asking themselves when they think about buying a textbook at the Coop, ‘Why am I paying 20 or 30 extra bucks to wait in line?’”

But Murphy predicted that Redline would have difficulty continuing its same level of discounts if they switched to purchasing domestic versions of books. And while Murphy is certainly paying attention to the competition from Redline, he said that people at the Coop “feel very comfortable.”

“What we offer is the full assortment of books...I believe we probably are the only store that has all the books laid out for all the courses,” with the exception of a few foreign language courses, Murphy said. “We view it as our mission.”

He said that students would continue to shop at the Coop because of its wide selection, yearly rebate check, and its longstanding presence in the community.

“You know we are going to be here tomorrow,” Murphy said.

Redline Sales Manager Brooks E. Washington ’06 expressed optimism that the company would be able to handle its growth and provide students an alternative source of books.

“I hope that we put some pressure on the Coop,” said Washington. “As we face new challenges, we will look into new solutions...We’ve learned so much about the textbook world.”

—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu