By Sharon Ramot
Contributing Writer
The creators of a new e-marketplace called Fulldorm.com has aimed to create an exclusive marketplace where college students can buy, sell and share everything from old textbooks to used cars or extra pair of Red Sox tickets exclusively among each other.
FullDorm reported that since they launched at Bentley last fall, they have over 80 percent of the student population signed up. Their numbers at Boston University have also been growing steadily since their launch a couple months ago.
On April 2, 2011 the creators of FullDorm opened their site to all undergraduate, graduate and faculty at Simmons, Berklee, MIT, Suffolk, UMASS Boston, Northeastern, BC, Emerson and Brandeis.
“As recent college grads, we realized that each campus is its own community and within each community, most students are interested in the same tangible things. The premise behind creating FullDorm is that students have what other students want. Just like everyone else, we know about Craigslist and we actually have used the Craigslist model to constantly remind us what we don’t want to be” said FullDorm founder, Jeff Weiss.
Craigslist is a decent service for the masses, but college students only use it out of necessity, according to Weiss.
“It’s unsafe, unreliable and filled with spam, scams and illegal services,” he said.
To ensure the integrity of the site and to authenticate that the users are in fact affiliated with their university, FullDorm requires your school email address to sign up. This creates a safe community, a community where students know they can receive reliable services from nearby students in Boston.
Browsing through the classifieds, students have posted last minute Bruins tickets, private tutoring lessons, textbooks, apartment furniture, student sublets, and ride share opportunities.
“We’re so much more than just a localized, private Craigslist for students. We have a clip of the day, Rideshare, Classifieds, Campus Forum, Dorm Deals (similar to Groupon), an off-campus rental database, and also a news feature that bring relevant and interesting news from across the internet and around the world to our site,” said Weiss.
Upon using FullDorm, there is an implied sense of security, integrity and community since you already have an idea of who you’re dealing with on the other side.
“With the exception of our off-campus rentals section which is comprised exclusively of listings by real estate agents, management companies and landlords, we guarantee that every post on our site is made by a student, faculty or recent alumni,” according to FullDorm’s website.
“You don’t have to worry about strangers contacting you because the only way to get the contact information for the person who created the post is to sign in with your school email address,” said Weiss.
The mission of FullDorm is to “connect the campus community,” and so far they have found the formula to not only connect students within their campus but also across Boston area campuses; a community that enables efficient connections and services for the entire Boston area student body.
