Why do charity shops seem to have so few books?

martindow

PlutoinCapricorn wrote: »

This company is not in it for the profit. They have a shop on eBay:

Welcome to World of Books, the home of used books online. World of Books recycles books on behalf of charity. If you aren't convinced about buying used books from us, check out the top five reasons below!

1. We recycle books on behalf of charities in the UK.

2. We recycle books! Over 2.3 million books saved from landfill sites every month.

3. Great quality used books for you at reasonable prices.

4. Free delivery anywhere in the UK.

5. A great selection of over 250,000 books available.

http://www.worldofbooks.com/used-books

Are they not in it for the profit? I can't see anything on their site that suggests their profits benefit charities beyond the initial purchase. I assume they are buying them from charities in bulk at a few pence each and selling them on.

The mention of recycling is marketing and looks like greenwashing to me.

DKLS

Pandilex wrote: »

Interesting, didn't think about charity shops selling them on in bulk privately. That's probably what happens. A shame because I can't bargain hunt.

Unfortunately oxfam seems to charge ridiculous prices for their books.

They have been doing it for years selling bulk rags so makes sense with books.

The bigger shame is publishers pulping books, when I worked for one, they pulped about 95% of all returns. Beautiful books destroyed.

Mistral001

Unless a book is a very specialist authoritative book on a certain topic or a vintage first edition of a famous book, second hand books sell for a pittance. They always have done so, even before charity shops existed.

lincroft1710

DKLS wrote: »

They have been doing it for years selling bulk rags so makes sense with books.

The bigger shame is publishers pulping books, when I worked for one, they pulped about 95% of all returns. Beautiful books destroyed.

But if you can't sell the books, what else do you do with them. I know someone who wrote a book 5 years ago. To date only about 50% of the printed copies have been sold and the sales diminish yearly.

Savvy_Sue

DKLS wrote: »

The bigger shame is publishers pulping books, when I worked for one, they pulped about 95% of all returns. Beautiful books destroyed.

M6 Toll built on Mills and Boon books

im-lost

Pandilex wrote: »

Interesting, didn't think about charity shops selling them on in bulk privately. That's probably what happens. A shame because I can't bargain hunt.

Unfortunately oxfam seems to charge ridiculous prices for their books.

have you really just said charity shop and bargain in the same sentence :rotfl:

DKLS

lincroft1710 wrote: »

But if you can't sell the books, what else do you do with them. I know someone who wrote a book 5 years ago. To date only about 50% of the printed copies have been sold and the sales diminish yearly.

It is a problem, the books are just incurring costs sat in a warehouse, so it does make sense if you want to protect your product lines and reputation but it might help if the industry didn't massively overprint in the first place.

Slinky

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

M6 Toll built on Mills and Boon books

Funny you should pick out the M6 Toll, I was just thinking about it following comments about price further up the thread this is an example of if they put the price down they'd get far more people using it and more revenue from it. Went on it last week, Friday before BH weekend, was virtually empty. Seems like the business model is wrong to me.


Perhaps they prefer not to wear out their lovely road.

wattc

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

M6 Toll built on Mills and Boon books

That's bonkers information, thanks for posting it! The quote from that article I actually thought was a joke the first time I read it was:

"We use copies of Mills & Boon books, not as a statement about what we think of the writing, but because it is so absorbent.
"They may be slushy to many people, but it's their 'no-slushiness' that is their attraction as far as we are concerned.

pooandwee

My local charity shop has stopped taking books as they have too many. I like to buy books from a charity shop, read them and take them back. Actually I only buy fiction this way.