] The Suns came up with the idea when their son was leaving
] for college at Princeton University. After realizing how
] difficult it would be to send what he needed with him on
] a plane and how expensive it would be to ship things to
] New Jersey, DormRoomExpress was born. The Suns began
] selling packages late this spring. "We thought, you know,
] he can't be the only one having to trudge all these
] things across the country," Susan Sun said.
]
] Lauren Schrader, an incoming freshman at the University
] of Colorado at Boulder, was an early recipient of
] DormRoomExpress' best-selling item -- the Dean's List DR
] Express Kit. This package includes a pillow, sheets,
] comforter, fan and desk lamp. It cost about $30 less than
] buying piecemeal what she needed for school, Schrader
] said. "It's just really easy and it was free shipping.
] That's always a bonus."

A cool concept, but a little thin on the details. Regardless of whether your are pulling necessities out of a uhaul or or from a fedex box at the campus post office, move-in is teh suck.

If colleges were smart, they would bundle this stuff themselves. Allow someone to pick out a swatch of carpet for the dorm, sheets for the bed, extra shelves, etc, online. Then, you charge the people for already having it in the room when the student arrives on move in! Colleges can buy in bulk that so that the price, even with the added cost of having it in the the room already, would be competitve with your local Target or Walmart.

A cool concept, but a little thin on the details. Regardless of whether your are pulling necessities out of a uhaul or or from a fedex box at the campus post office, move-in is teh suck.

[ Not a bad idea. It appears the DormRoomExpress stuff is the same brands you get from Target... so from that standpoint it's not unlike what you'll get anyway. It's not for me. I'd rather be able to choose how to allot even a minimal amount of funding, but I'm picky about things like pillows and lamps. But I imagine for some it would be pretty rad. ...]

If colleges were smart, they would bundle this stuff themselves. ... Colleges can buy in bulk that so that the price, even with the added cost of having it in the the room already, would be competitve with your local Target or Walmart.

[... Agreed, the college could do it and make it easy as hell, but i don't believe for a second that it'd actually be cheaper. -k]