Second-hand book shops. Talk about expensive!

Post Reply New Topic

The majority of the second-hand book shops which I have looked in have such expensive books! I mean they aren't exactly rare editions either. No wonder the ones I've looked in never get much business. I remember recently looking in the window of one and the prices were up to £10. Plus they were quite tatty some of them. They should sell the books cheap and a lot of people would be more interested in buying them. I myself prefer buying books in stores instead of online or just getting them from the library.
Anyone frequent customers of second-hand book shops near them? Or perhaps agree that books nowadays in them are overpriced?

You should say to the proprietor, I will buy this book for 1 dollar. They say it's 10 dollars. You pull out a five dollar note and put it on the table. Five dollars. They say no its 10 dollars. You say okay, four dollars. Going once. Going twice...

You walk away, they go - "OKAY FIVE DOLLARS!"

Which is the price you wanted to pay.



It sounds odd but a friend put me onto this and I've done it twice and it has worked both times.

It never hurts to try. Lol that reminds me of when me and my cousin went to a pizza place to eat in and she asked the waitor if we could have the garlic bread for free. It worked but then she tipped them using my money!
To be honest I don't know if I'd have the confidence to do that although maybe if I really liked the book I would try to haggle. I think it would partly depend on whether or not the person selling it would be in a good modd or not.

The secret is pulling out the money and presenting it then motioning to walk away because you've turned the power balance around. Instead of you missing out on a deal, you're making them think they're missing out.

If it fails however - you might not have the courage to go back in and pay the full price

There's just something empowering about being able to say "your loss" to someone. I suspect other people can sense it. My friend is into mentalism and that and it's quite interesting, probably very useful to alot of aspies - if they are interested in applying it.

I'm not looking to rip off bookshops either - just ones that I know are over priced.

I agree! Secondhand books are highly over priced here as well. So much so that I've stopped going to shops all together.
I don't understand why a book that has a worn cover, bent pages, and a few rips would cost nearly as much as a new one. Hm, guess everyone wants to make a buck or two.

Nonetheless, since I have a mild obsession with books and reading (when I have the time)....and I read fairly quickly...I've gotten myself the Nook (comparative to the Kindle). Yes, it's VERY expensive however I get almost all of my books for free (either from people I know or websites that offer them). In the end I think it will be worth it.
PLUS....its a gadget....I'm addicted to them!

all depends on the books i guess. I know the used bookstore in my area has pricing pretty nice, $5 hardcovers unless they are like limited edition books/rare. Soft cover books are only like 2$

£10 is a lot. Was it in good condition? Were the tatty ones cheaper or similarly priced?

I was in a bookshop yesterday with a friend and a lady who worked there told us that Amazon are apparently considering opening bookshops. I don't know whether they would be selling new or second-hand books or maybe a combination. Amazon must think that there is still a demand for real life books.

It depends on the book. But I do agree that prices are going up, in Australia at least. But it can't be all bad in the UK. I got The Quatermass Experiment (which I had been looking for, and found quite by accident passing an Oxfam Bookshop on the way to the British Museum) for 6 pounds, and it is a rare book. The cheapest I could find it in Australia, over the internet, was about $30. By contrast, getting it from the Oxfam Bookshop was $15, and I got plenty of other cheap books from Oxfam Bookshops during my trip to the UK last year. I got a copy of Who On Earth Is Tom Baker? for 3 pounds (I still have the pencilled-in price on the inside page). And while not in an Oxfam Bookshop, there was a bric-a-brac shop in Brighton, whose name I cannot recall (that whole day, considering the crappy, hurricane-like weather, traumatised me) where I picked up a signed copy limited hardback edition of Faction Paradox: The Book of the War for six pounds and fifty pence. That's about $16 Australian, or was at the time, but would have cost me $50 to order online.

That being said, I bought a couple of relatively cheap books recently by swapping old books at a second-hand bookshop here. I got a hold of Quatermass, the novelisation of the final Quatermass serial by Nigel Kneale, and Hospital Station, the first Sector General story, by James White.

Id so much rather have real paper than a f*****g E-book, if I wanted it on my damn computer id scan it. plus having a book is much nicer since i can just kick back and relax on the bed/sofa/wherever and not have to worry bout hitting a button to go to the next page.

I'm a bit of a book-nerd, and used to frequent second-hand bookshops quite regularly. It all depends on the bookstore: I've seen some selling worthless editions of semi-worthless books for over $40 a piece, I've seen others selling paperbacks for less than $1.

In my experience, some used bookstores are fair, others simply are not.

Any rare book lovers in here?

--David

As part of my business, I sell books. For most contemporary novels (in the last 40 years) in hardback format, my price is between $2.50US and $5.00US; paperbacks go for between $0.50US and $2.00US. First editions and rare books go for more accordingly, with my more expensive book being a first edition of "Brazil and the Brazilians" including the maps from the 1850s that in it's current condition has a value of over $600.00US. I also have some relatively uncommon titles such as the "ABC & XYC of Bee Culture", "Amy, the Glassblower's Daughter", a five volume set on the life of George Washington written by Washington Irving (1860s, I believe), and a variety of authentic Masonic texts ranging from 70 to over 100 years old. Some booksellers go purely by list value on their books, which accounts for their high prices and why the bargaining approach proffered earlier in this thread might work in those circumstances - if someone were to try that in my shop, I would probably start laughing profusely. Today I had an offer on a selection of items that amounted to 45% of the listed price (or a 55% discount) to which I told the customer that I would not bother calling the dealer with that absurd of a figure. I am always willing to take offers on my "big ticket" items, but I'm not going to insult my dealers or cheapen my business in that manner. Part of my strategy when I purchase is to be able to sell an item at 70%-80% of the actual value, striking a balance between turning a profit and driving the aspect of value when customers come into my store. And yes, I am a hard bargain shopper myself in order to achieve that goal on a consistent basis. Realistically, if you are in an antique store (or a used bookstore, in many instances), a customer will find the greatest success in asking for an offer of 10%-30% off of the listed price. If it has been there for an extended period (depending on the item, this may be 6 months to 3 years) then an offer up 50% may be appropriate, but will most often result in a counter-offer being made. A note to all is that one makes no headway by insulting the store or the seller with their offer or their attitude. And yes, David, I collect odd books (more than rare books) - old medical volumes, unusual bindings, strange subjects, even a curious tome by the name of "Safe Counsel" that discusses the philosophies of eugenics at the dawn of the 20th century. I still kick myself for not getting a rather singular book some years ago that was the history of the US Civil War, written and printed within ten years of the final battles - but written from the Southern perspective. It sold the day before I went in to purchase it myself... while I had perused it briefly, it was something I had wanted to better understand.


M.

I don't even bother with the second hand book shops around here anymore. There was one really good one but it closed about two years ago. Bookmooch.com all the way now. Just take the ones with me that I'm sending out when I go to the post office to send off orders for my business and wait for my news ones to show up. Usually I save up my points though for when I'm furloughed from my day job and business is slow so I can still have books without taping into the grocery money.

No it didn't look it. The prices were similarly priced from what I saw but I didn't have much time to look at that particular bookstore. I'll probably go in there properly when I get a chance to see if there are any reasonably priced books in there. I used to go to another second-hand book store quite regularly but only because it used to sell cheap judge dredd comics in there. The other books they had were weird and overpriced for what they were.

True, actually, bartering for second-hand things tends to work quite well.

It didn't happen to be one of the many books that General PGT Beauregard wrote about the Civil War and the battles that he was engaged in? A friend who is a Civil War buff (and a direct decendant of Gen. Beauregard) actually has a number of those titles.

I have noticed that bookstore titles depend upon the title, bookseller and online. What I find amazing is online prices for used books. Why is it that some dealers online sell used books for MORE than the price of a new book of the same title? I can understand classic, signed or rare books, but this is usually for academic and bestseller titles.