Our New Approach

It is now quite possible for the stores themselves to operate more effectively than the liquidators, using that same infrastructure but with some advantages of their own. They can thus not only stay in business but may eventually drive the liquidators into oblivion.

Well run used book stores provide a service that is highly valued by many of their customers. They provide a place for people to dispose of things that, while having limited value to themselves, still may have significant value to other people. These types of things do not belong in the trash, but in the hands of new owners. This does not apply to just books, but also things like movie DVDs and music CDs.

It is the job of used book stores to not only provide the location, but to properly appraise the market value of these goods, give the provider significant monetary or other value as reward for not overloading our landfills unnecessarily, and then to effectively organize these goods to make them easily accessible to new owners.

In the past, especially before the age of computers, it was difficult to do all of these things as efficiently as can be done today and still make a decent living for the store operators. Today, to be viable, a used book store must be considered as part of the computer age. In fact, it no longer can survive as a merely retail operation; an outlet for books. It is more of an intake of books and other recyclable media for the purpose of wholesale marketing through online retail outlets such as Amazon and eBay. It will still serve as a retail outlet for a small but worthwhile percentage of its sales, but it must be an entertaining venue where customers can come regularly to browse, chat, or sit and read while drinking a latte or chai supplied by the store.