Online book reseller Thriftbooks Global has added a new inventory stream, beyond the library, charity and donation center castoffs that make up the bulk of its merchandise — its own customers. The company has launched a BuyBack program that allows customers to sell books directly to Thriftbooks, earning either money or store credit in return.
The program is designed to make it easy for Thriftbooks to acquire high-demand books it needs in its inventory, provided they are still in relatively good condition. Customers who have previously purchased books from Thriftbooks can log into their account and view their ‘SellBack Shelf,’ which will show how much Thriftbooks is offering (based on popularity and demand) to buy back books they’ve previously purchased. Users also can enter the ISBN numbers of books not purchased from Thriftbooks to find out how much Thriftbooks would pay for them.
“BuyBack was the last piece of the puzzle we needed to help our customers fully participate in the circular economy,” said Ken Goldstein, Chairman and CEO of ThriftBooks Global. “It takes a surprisingly complex set of algorithms to deliver an exceptional customer experience, and we’ve been studying the competitive landscape for years. We worked through the details over an extended beta period and now think our platform can respond to all the learning we’ve gained from our customers. We think ThriftBooks BuyBack will become the industry standard for recommerce and we look forward to continuing to improve this experience with ongoing customer feedback.”
Anyone can now sell books to Thriftbooks, whether they’ve purchased books on the site before or not, but they will have to create a free Thriftbooks account first. Sellers will receive a prepaid shipping label to send the books to ThriftBooks. Once the books are received and confirmed, the customer will receive their payment, which they can either cash out or turn into store credit for future purchases.
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Since its launch on Amazon in 2003, ThriftBooks.com has gone on to become one of the world’s largest online independent used booksellers, and has sold more than 250 million books across 160+ countries.
