A Craig's List site with students in mind

He calls it Campusdock, but potential users might begin to refer to it as "Greg's List."

Last month, Wharton junior Greg Morillo started Campusdock.com, a site that students can use to do everything from selling books and furniture to finding job and house listings.

It's like Craigslist.com, Morilllo says, but exclusive to students.

And while it isn't the first online forum for college students to market their wares, Campusdock is unique in its effort to expand nationwide.

Morillo has already set up sites at 15 schools besides Penn, including forums at Harvard, Brown and Bucknell universities and the University of California, Berkeley.

Since its Jan. 20 launch, 129 books and 29 DVDs have gone up for sale on the Penn edition of Campusdock, with about 120 students signed up.

"There are so many people on Penn's campus that are going to buy and sell stuff," Morillo said. "What they don't realize is that there are students here that are trying to do the same thing."

Morillo credits what he sees as the site's early success with the months he spent working on its design.

He said his goal was to make the site more organized and visually appealing than Craigslist, which is often criticized for its sprawling layout.

Among other organizational features on Campusdock, users have the ability to search textbooks by academic department.

Users can also type in the ISBN number on the back of a book or DVD and the site will load both the picture and manufacturer's description of the product.

"Everything we admire about Google - the ease of use, the intuitiveness - reflects what we're trying to do here," he said.

After taking a look at the new site, Marketing professors Jagmohan Raju and Keith Niedermeier said they believed that limiting the users to students was likely a recipe for success.

"Depending on how many people go to the [Web site], there could be many advertisers interested in a target student audience," Raju said.

"It's offering a level of protection and community that distinguishes it from eBay [and] Amazon.com," Niedermeier added.

He cautioned, however, that the site should stick to catering to students, even as it grows.

"I think that there will be a temptation to lift these barriers, but if and when they do that, they completely lose the competitive position," Niedermeier said.

College senior Jennifer Lee recently used the site to sell MCAT prep books and said she was impressed by the fast response to her listing.

"I thought I would be listing these books and not be hearing for months or weeks," she said. "I was just glad to get rid of them."

A comment like Lee's is music to Morillo's ears.

"We're creating a market," he said. "But the bottom line is, it's for the benefit of college students."

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