College Bookstores Standardize on BookRenter Platform for Online Textbook Rentals

SAN MATEO, Calif., June 3 /PRNewswire/ -- BookRenter, the leading online textbook platform company, today announced that more than 75 college bookstores have adopted the BookRenter Platform as their exclusive means of renting textbooks online to their students. These stores serve more than 1.3 million students and are located across the country in 20 different states, with 22 stores in California alone. By launching their own rental stores on the BookRenter Platform, partner schools are providing their students with easy access to the nation's premier online textbook rental service, with the broadest selection, best prices, and unprecedented customer service. In doing so, they are helping to save students thousands of dollars over the life of their college education without any capital investment, textbook inventory, or technical staff.

"In the few weeks since we opened up our platform, we've been delighted by the tremendous demand for our service and the explosive growth in the number of partner stores across the country," said Mehdi Maghsoodnia, chief executive officer of BookRenter. "We're proud to be setting the standard and leveling the playing field for schools by empowering bookstores to offer much lower textbook costs to millions of their students."

One of the factors driving the success of the BookRenter platform is the need for lower educational costs. Also, because many college bookstores are cooperatives that allocate a portion of their revenues back to their schools, students who rent college textbooks from these stores end up supporting their own campuses.

In April, BookRenter opened its platform to allow any organization to create its own full-service, branded online rental store in minutes without any investment in technology or inventory. Since then, all different types of schools, from large public universities to small community colleges, are adopting the BookRenter Platform, including 25 percent of the top 50 largest schools with independently managed bookstores. Based on this early demand, BookRenter projects that hundreds of campuses across the nation will run their own online rental stores by the fall term. Schools with bookstores currently offering a textbook rental store on the BookRenter platform include the University of Texas at Austin, North Carolina State University, the University of Memphis, the City College of San Francisco, and the University of San Diego.

"When researching potential rental solutions for our campus, BookRenter really stood alone in terms of what it provided – the best textbook prices, largest selection, and an outstanding service truly tailored to our needs," said Kathy Missell, bookstore director for the University of San Diego. "We are excited to launch an online store that saves our students money and helps support USD at the same time."

"We are constantly looking for ways to better serve and show value to our students," said Don Newton, general manager of City College of San Francisco Bookstores. "Launching our own online textbook rental store made it easy for us to capitalize on our students' requests to save money on textbooks by providing a quality, turnkey solution that we could tailor and manage to suit our needs."

BookRenter built its reputation as the industry leader based on the quality of its consumer-facing rental website, www.bookrenter.com. With the best prices, selection, and service, customer satisfaction remains the highest of any textbook rental website. BookRenter also recently added Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph to its board of directors, and launched a new program dedicated to fighting youth illiteracy and helping the next generation of leaders by donating books to kids in need with each rental order. These activities demonstrate the company's ongoing commitment to do everything it can to improve the educational lives of current and future college students.

For more information about BookRenter, please visit www.bookrenter.com.

About BookRenter

BookRenter launched in 2008 and is dedicated to making education more affordable by allowing students to rent textbooks for up to 75% off the retail price. BookRenter's innovative pricing and operating systems provide students with the best price, highest quality books, and most flexible rental experience available today. Currently carrying over 3 million titles and serving thousands of students on over 5,000 U.S. campuses, BookRenter is one of the fastest growing startups in Silicon Valley, growing at over 400% each year. BookRenter, with offices in San Mateo, California, is a private company that is funded by prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms. To learn more about how to use BookRenter for all of your textbook rental needs, please visit http://www.bookrenter.com.

SOURCE BookRenter