Take the website LiveSouk.com (). Set up by Fayez Iqbal in February 2011, the site has already grown past its original concept of selling used textbooks in Jeddah. 

"I created the site because I wanted to make it easy for people to buy and sell their used textbooks at our school. I noticed that private schools in Jeddah don't really have that culture where people sell or give their textbooks to other people who might be able to use them," said Iqbal. "I saw that textbooks were usually just thrown away or forgotten on a shelf."

A student at the College of Business Administration (CBA) in Jeddah, Iqbal thought that with an enrollment of over 2,300 young men and women, there were plenty of his friends and acquaintances who would make use of such a website. So although he had no programming experience, he registered a domain and got busy teaching himself the basics about running an online marketplace.

"I got a script and I edited it and made it so it's for Saudi Arabia and fits my requirements," explained Iqbal. "Then I started passing out flyers and posting flyers at my school and at other schools in Jeddah advertising the site. Pretty much through word of mouth LiveSouk became popular really fast." 

Textbooks can cost thousands of riyals per semester. Before LiveSouk, no one at schools in Jeddah had a method of selling the used  books. Every student went out each semester and bought new ones.

"Sometimes the textbooks wouldn't be available and many are really expensive. Not everyone can afford to buy new ones," Iqbal said. "Often students use the book for just one semester and they'll never refer to it again, so why not sell it to the next person who will take the course? Buying used textbooks is common in other countries and some colleges even make it easy for students to sell their books, but it's unusual for that to happen here. Lots of private grade schools and secondary schools require students to purchase their textbooks, so I thought that students from any private school in Jeddah could make use of LiveSouk to sell their used books and other educational materials."

According to Iqbal, students liked the idea of LiveSouk a lot. Soon they were asking him to create a category on LiveSouk for used cars and another one for electronics.

"In our school the kids are always trying to sell their old cars, especially when they want to buy something new. Even if you go out on the street in Jeddah there are always cars parked around which have "For Sale" signs on them.  That's not a good way to reach a lot of interested buyers," he said. "With LiveSouk, people have a convenient place where they can reach out to students who often have a limited amount of money and are very interested in buying used items in good condition."

There are now six categories on the site including the ones already mentioned, plus mobile phones, jobs and "anything else." The site accepts postings for sales in Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam and Madinah. Iqbal doesn't get involved in any of the buying or selling. People post their advertisements and the exchange is between the buyer and seller. Ads are set to automatically expire after 150 days, although a seller can delete an ad at any time. The newest ads are on top of the list with older ads pushed to the bottom. There is some community policing of the advertisements with the ability for users to flag suspicious ads.

"I get a report immediately if an ad is flagged and I investigate right away," said Iqbal. "I encourage people to alert me to any problem on the site and I always welcome feedback so that I can improve LiveSouk."

Currently, Iqbal isn't making any money from the site.  In fact, he supports everything personally, putting in his time as administrator and paying the hosting fees for the domain and the servers where the site  resides. He'd like to get a sponsor for LiveSouk so that at least its running costs would be covered. And even though he has just one semester left at CBA he plans to keep LiveSouk up long after his student days are over.     

"I received some good feedback from local 'green' groups who thought it was great that the textbooks wouldn't be discarded and that lots of other used equipment was being sold on the site," Iqbal said. "I am really interested in doing my part to save the environment so no matter where life takes me, I plan to keep LiveSouk running so that people can reuse as many items as possible. Please join in the effort."