With regard to the general platforms, eBay, Amazon, Bol.com, 2ehands.be and Kapaza are our main competitors.Although these websites are frequently visited, consumers risk to get lost in their abundant offer. In addition to that, their offer of second hand student books is not presented in a structural way - according to institution, faculty or discipline - often resulting in a chaotic buying or selling process. When looking at specialized platforms such as StuBooks and Books in Belgium, their is no such disadvantage. These websites exclusively offer second hand books, which immediately makes them our main competitors. Their biggest disadvantage, which also goes for the general platforms, is the impossibility to verify the book’s condition. In some cases, a simple description or picture doesn’t suffice to avoid buying a pig in a poke. This is the main reason why we decided to introduce our video concept, giving the buyer the opportunity to check the book’s condition in advance. The last group of competitors are the physical libraries such as De Slegte, De Kaft, Oxfam Bookshop, and so on. These shops do give the opportunity to check the book’s condition, but lack in efficiency and convenience compared to m-commerce.
 

Next to our direct competitors, we also have indirect competitors: the e-book and new books. The former endangers the existence of paper books and thus indirectly the existence of second hand paper books - threatening BookUnit’s offer -. The latter is a  threat in the way that students still have the opportunity to buy student books at Acco and Standaard Boekhandel, often with a small reduction for students.