Review: Half Price Books
Old hat to Austinites, but there’s a great little chain in town called Half Price Books. Indeed, every paperback they sell is for 50% off the cover price. Hardcovers are seemingly randomly priced.
More interestingly, they also have a pretty cool system to buy books from you (at a fraction of the cost). You bring in a box of books to a counter in the back, they require that you stay in the store, and then they offer you a price (no bargaining). Then you take the offer to the front. By this point, you’ve picked up several more books and their devious vector plotting has paid off.
Not a cash cow by any means (I just got rid of ~30 books and earned a whopping $10), but the selection is pretty good given the nature of the community, the prices are sometimes comparable with Amazon/Half.com.
I miss them from my time living in Everett, WA. I never sold (I always sell on Amazon if a book I have has value) there but found some great bargains from time to time. There’s nothing really comparable to HPB here in Greensboro, which is a real shame. I can appreciate your breakdown of their system though, given the comments of the spouses in the parking lot seeing their significant other walking out with boxes not emptied as promised.