Those monthly trips to West Lebanon may not be so crucial after all. Hanover's newest shopping venue offers Dartmouth students a bevy of choices for their eclectic tastes.
What's more: to make purchases from televisions and textbooks to the occasional used car, students don't even need to leave their residence halls.
Operated by student-run Netbay Solutions, Darbay -- an online commerce site open only to the Dartmouth community -- made its debut earlier this month.
The site, located at www.darbay.com, allows users to bid on an array of products offered by students and local merchants. So far, no automobiles have been sold (10 are currently up for sale), although a number of smaller items have exchanged hands.
Furniture, books, CDs and DVDs are among the 100-plus products currently for sale on the website.
Netbay is run by six Dartmouth students and one alumnus, and they hope to create similar exchange platforms at other schools, co-founder James Mendez '03 said.
"Right now, we're in the beta-testing stage," Mendez said. "We're debugging the software and analyzing how people are using it."
Unlike the "Basement" website's Exchange, Darbay allows students to barter for what they want, said Ed Wei '03, who works for both Netbay and the Basement team.
Wei said that instead of replacing the existing Exchange service, students will utilize both programs.
"I think that people will list their items on both places," he said. "When I started working on Darbay, I was thinking that this was going to be competition for the Exchange -- but actually Darbay is slightly different."
Darbay operates using patent-pending Smartbid technology, "an artificially-intelligent algorithm that negotiates with a potential buyer based on the user's input and the pertaining history of the product," Mendez said. To determine suitable replies to the buyer's bids, the program consults a database that lists what people have bid on similar products in the past.
Waiting for bidding time to expire is no longer necessary if a buyer desires -- a factor that distinguishes Darbay from popular online auction site eBay -- so sales can occur in a matter of seconds. If a product's bidding time expires without a purchase being made, it is simply taken off the market.
"It creates an auction system that anybody can use on the spot," Mendez said. "You can buy anything on an instantaneous basis. You begin real-time conversations with the computer."
By limiting sales on Darbay to Dartmouth students, there are significant cost savings, he added, as shipping costs become non-existent.
"You're dealing with other Dartmouth students," Mendez said. "It's a very safe, friendly environment."
To ensure that non-Dartmouth students cannot gain access to the system, Darbay users must enter their BlitzMail passwords to place bids.
The service is currently commission-free, as it earns revenue from advertisements. Netbay has also entered business partnerships with other online networks such as Vault, an online job-hunting database.
Local merchants are also permitted to place items for sale on Darbay, and students will soon receive fliers publicizing the service, Netbay representatives said.
