At the beginning of each semester, University bookstores are crowded with students purchasing textbooks. However, there is an alternate and cheaper solution for students to avoid the rush.

Ugenie.com, launched in May 2006, is an online shopping search engine created by two University alumni. The site displays the cheapest textbooks from various merchants, allowing shoppers to compare prices all at once. Ugenie.com does not buy or sell items, but guides customers to other Web sites for the cheapest items.

Krishna Motukuri, CEO and co-founder of Ugenie.com, understands the frustrations of shopping online.

Shopping online should be enjoyable and not technologically challenging, he said.

Motukuri and Harish Abbott, who both received their master’s degree from the University, founded Ugenie.com by combining their strengths in computer skills and operations research. From their experience as former students, they understand the ordeal and pain students feel in purchasing books.

The first problem Abbott and Motukuri encountered was comparison shopping for multiple items. At a typical online store, consumers only see that merchant’s price for an item. To solve this, Abbott and Motukuri provided an interface allowing consumers to find the cheapest price for more than one item across several Web sites.

This makes it easier for the consumers to buy more than one item from different merchants. Ugenie.com’s bundle-search algorithm crunches through millions of combinations for the cheapest price. Motukuri said this is a challenging computer science problem, known as an NP-Hard problem (Non-determinist Polynomial-time hard).

Mandy Amsler, sophomore in LAS, does not have prior experience with shopping online for textbooks, but she noted the difficulties in shopping at the bookstore.

“The lines are really long. I waited an hour and a half at the T.I.S. Bookstore,” Amsler said. “I’m currently waiting for a book as we speak.”

Ugenie.com has expanded their shopping site from textbooks to include books, music, movies and video games.

“Our primary goal is to make sure the shopping (is) extremely convenient, the place that defines the next way of shopping – how people visualize shopping online,” Motukuri said.

Ugenie.com has also provided the tools needed for students to view textbooks for the semester. By clicking on the University name under the “Textbooks” tab on the main page, students are able to select the classes they’re enrolled in and view textbook listings. There are currently 120 universities with this information.

“We wanted to make it easier to access that information before they arrive on campus, giving them enough time to place their orders online and get them before the first day of class,” Motukuri said.

What makes Ugenie.com stand apart from other online shopping sites is that this advanced technology has taken into account all possible shipping discounts and coupons in order to bring down the price.

“(It’s) almost like magic,” Motukuri said.