School can be expensive. Parents, on average, spend about $100 on back-to-school items while a teacher might put down around $400 of his or her own paycheck for learning materials each year.
Even the cost of school supplies is expensive (and it’s climbing). That’s why Oakland, Calif. businesswomen Kate Whiting and Kaitlyn Trabucco started Educents.com, a new flash deal site that sells high quality and affordable educational learning tools, the Oakland Local reports.
Think of it like the designer sample sale website Gilt, but instead of discounts for clothing and accessories, it’s for books, educational tablets, classroom curricula and more learning tools. Like other flash sale sites, items on Educents can be up to 30 to 90 percent off (even free) if you buy at just the right moment.
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Educents has been growing since its launch in April 2013 — approximately 120,000 buyers have reportedly visited the site.
The site features about 700 established educational product brands and publishers such as McGraw Hill and Rosetta Stone, along with independent retailers and regular teachers who’ve put up their own classroom material for sale (similar to Etsy).
“We want to help those small businesses, those teachers building apps, reach their market … Small entrepreneurs do not have marketing budgets,” Whiting tells Oakland Local.
After all, being prepared for school shouldn’t have to break anyone’s wallet.
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