By Staff Writer C.J. Pearce
Skorb.com is a website that is sure to give Upromise a run for their money. Launched on September 1, 2012, the website allows college students to receive discounts at participating retailers for shopping through the Skorb website. The discounts are pre-arranged with the retailers and disclosed to the students up front so they receive a percentage off of each purchase without having to search for coupon codes or waiting for a payback like with a cashback shopping site.
So what is the main difference between Skorb and Upromise? Upromise earns a commission for every purchase made through their website. They then give a portion of this commission as “cashback” to the person who made the purchase (minus a percentage that they keep as profit). The cashback then goes into an account and can be withdrawn or used to pay for college loan expenses. Skorb gives the discount upfront as opposed to making people wait for cashback to arrive in their account. They also give 100% of their sales commission back to the students (as opposed to keeping it for profit). Skorb is also similar to Upromise in that they also allow family members to make purchases and allow the commission to be donated to a family member; in the case of Skorb, the commission would go to the student. However, Skorb gives 100% of this commission earned from family purchases to the student of that person’s choosing.
“When I was in college, it was important to me to save every dime that I could,” says co-founder Gregory Brooks. Conceptualized with his brother in mid-2011, Brooks says the website is built around the needs of college students. “Telling someone to simply ‘spend less money’ is not effective. At the end of the day, I need to buy a lot of things to live. Additionally, I’m a human being and I want to reward myself every now and then. Skorb addresses this problem not by attempting to train students how to behave, but rather by saying ‘Hey, you need to buy textbooks, toiletries, and plane tickets home; but, you also occasionally want to buy clothes or a daily deal or the latest tablet. You can do all of that here, and it is impossible to pay less.'”
Skorb does seem to be catering to college students as opposed to the shopping community as a whole. Their site features retailers such as Apple, Microsoft, Best Buy, and Groupon. Brooks states that all of these retailers have a targeted demographic in college students. “We told prospective partners that we would deliver college students. But we also explained how financially difficult it is to be a college student right now. In exchange for the opportunity to gain customer loyalty for the next 20-30 years, partners had to provide a concession in prices.”
The website launched in September of 2012 but Brooks states that they already have “four figures” worth of members. We also checked out the website and found some pretty amazing deals. Skorb has deals that include up to 90% off textbooks, 30% off Apple MacBooks, and 65% off glasses and contact lenses. With all that said, Skorb is sure to concern the Upromises of the internet, all while helping students make it through their college years.
