Today was a crap donations day.
The nadir was a bag of old telephone books and Ikea catalogs:
Not as bad but hardly stellar was 4 grocery bags of pop thrillers--the usual James Patterson, Patricia Cornwall, Tom Clancy, et al.
We get a million of these.
I price them at 49-cents each, hard- or paperback, and even at that, they don't fly off the shelves.
I decided to offload all four bags on a volunteer who'd asked me for books for her church's spring rummage sale.
I barely bothered to look through all the books, but . . . What's this?
One of these things is not like the others:
A first U.S. ed. (though not first printing) of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar?
How did that end up among these modern bestsellers?
This edition sells for $20 and up.
I priced it $35 and put it in our glass case.
I've been trying to hit a balance where cool things are within reach of people who want to own them, and are also expensive enough to put off the people who buy to resell.
I used to shop at thrift stores to resell on ebay, so I'm somewhat sympathetic to re-sellers, but I'd rather the store get the money because we use it to fund our food bank and other programs that help a lot of people fulfill basic needs--things I care about.
Also the store is something of a community resource---there really are a lot of regulars, and I want to keep that lively.
It's taken me a while to decide what to do about resellers.
I finally figured that since they're a fact of life, it's the job of thrift stores (me) to know the merchandise well enough to price it fairly.
So, this weekend I finally downloaded a free app (which resellers use) that scans barcodes and tells you how much money different big online companies, like Amazon or Powell's, will pay for them.
If a reseller pays the thrift store a dollar––our standard price for a paperback––and resells it to Amazon for three dollars, I don't care. They're welcome to it, and it saves me the trouble.
But now I'll know if some books are worth a whole lot more, and I'll price them higher--again, oddly, pricing them higher so they stay on the shelves for local readers.
The nadir was a bag of old telephone books and Ikea catalogs:
Not as bad but hardly stellar was 4 grocery bags of pop thrillers--the usual James Patterson, Patricia Cornwall, Tom Clancy, et al.
We get a million of these.
I price them at 49-cents each, hard- or paperback, and even at that, they don't fly off the shelves.
I decided to offload all four bags on a volunteer who'd asked me for books for her church's spring rummage sale.
I barely bothered to look through all the books, but . . . What's this?
One of these things is not like the others:
A first U.S. ed. (though not first printing) of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar?
How did that end up among these modern bestsellers?
This edition sells for $20 and up.
I priced it $35 and put it in our glass case.
I've been trying to hit a balance where cool things are within reach of people who want to own them, and are also expensive enough to put off the people who buy to resell.
I used to shop at thrift stores to resell on ebay, so I'm somewhat sympathetic to re-sellers, but I'd rather the store get the money because we use it to fund our food bank and other programs that help a lot of people fulfill basic needs--things I care about.
Also the store is something of a community resource---there really are a lot of regulars, and I want to keep that lively.
It's taken me a while to decide what to do about resellers.
I finally figured that since they're a fact of life, it's the job of thrift stores (me) to know the merchandise well enough to price it fairly.
So, this weekend I finally downloaded a free app (which resellers use) that scans barcodes and tells you how much money different big online companies, like Amazon or Powell's, will pay for them.
If a reseller pays the thrift store a dollar––our standard price for a paperback––and resells it to Amazon for three dollars, I don't care. They're welcome to it, and it saves me the trouble.
But now I'll know if some books are worth a whole lot more, and I'll price them higher--again, oddly, pricing them higher so they stay on the shelves for local readers.
A gem !
ReplyDeleteWhat a cool app. That sounds like a very useful tool! I used to have an early edition of The Bell Jar that looked just like that, but mine was from a book club and thus not worth anything. (Book club editions are frowned upon in the book world, as you know!) I eventually gave it to our own local used book shop. Why on EARTH would someone give you a bag of used catalogs and phone books?!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see that app being used for good!!! The Amazon book resellers are the bane of used book sales anymore. I wonder how much they are actually making reselling books. I am betting that none of them calculate how much labor and time goes into going to the sales plus packing them up and shipping.
ReplyDeleteMy parents were resellers but they knew books and authors and history and didn't need to rely on an app to tell them the value of a book.
I used to run into one of the local used bookstore owners at the library book sales. But he was buying them for the store and often to fill in gaps. You would be amazed at how many people like to come in and buy an entire set by an author.
I totally agree about making it so local people can buy stuff for themselves.
Congrets on saving Sylvia Plath!
Kirsten
GZ: Yes!
ReplyDeleteSTEVE: We do get bags of actual garbage--accidentally, I hope?
I figure someone has died or is moving and everything gets scooped up and dumped on us.
Happy to say it's just as common that we get nicely sorted, clean, usbale stuff.
That was my first thought when I saw this book---is it a Book Club ed.? So happy to open it and see the real deal.
KIRSTEN: Resellers are a funny thing. Luckily the ones who come to my thrift store don't bother with books with no ISBNs,
so they never buy up the Cool Old Books.
I was talking to a guy with a scanner the other day--he had his 10 month old son with him, which is why I noticed him. He said his wife works, and he spends 20 hours/week at book reselling, which allows him to be a stay-at-home dad.
So that's nice.
Except he was furtive and unfriendly... I suppose he feels unwelcome, and in fact I did dislike him because of his furtiveness. A bad feedback loop.
It's rare that a reseller is like the enthusiastic young man who showed me how his scanner worked and just treated it like fair game---which it is---we get the same price no matter what happens to the books...
The difference is, I'd prefer to build up and serve a community of readers---people who talk to me and each as they browse the shelves (and they do!).
Since I've started scanning, I realize why the resellers only buy a dozen or so books from my store---most big box buyer/sellers don't pay more than a dollar--often less, and often nothing at all.
The man with the baby told me he's been doing this for a couple years and has gotten good at spotting likely sells, but the enthusiastic young man was scanning every single book--
that probably does not pay much per hour, but seemed a sort of fun hobby he had taken up.
Anyway, it's the new economic model.
I hear scanners buy up clothes too...
Not sure if they hit up my store---we're small, grungy, and out of the way.