We are all well aware by now of how the internet and online bookselling has forever altered the trade. For many of the new players the book has become the latest commodity with all its cultural and material attributes having been stripped away. We are left with a torrent of cheap books.
One of leaders in this new space is Thrift Books, an online only bookseller based in Auburn, Washington which, ironically enough, is in Amazon’s backyard. They claim to be the “nation’s largest online seller of used books.”
Thrift Books has just issued a press release celebrating the selling of their 10 millionth book.
Here are some tidbits:
-“After achieving a record year in sales, Thrift Books, an online retailer of used books, aims for domination on the Internet.”
– “Now boasting an inventory of almost 5 million books at any given time, Thrift Books processes an average 80,000 books a day.”
-“With the invention of the iPad, Kindle, Nook and other e-readers, select literary editors and agents claim the publishing industry will suffer in terms of physical books sold. However, with cheap books sold at a discount, Thrift Books anticipates a bright future with more growth to come.”
‘Aims for domination’, ‘Now boasting’, ‘cheap books sold at a discount”- not your typical run-of-the-mill bookseller speak.
The Thrift Books web also includes these subsidiaries which appear on the various online marketplaces:
Green Earth Books,
Motor City Books,
The Atlanta Book Company LLC,
Blue Cloud Books LLC and
Yankee Clipper Books LLC
And here is their management team and related experience.
CEO – “worked in the sales industry. He managed marketing and sales efforts for several Fortune 500 companies”
President and COO – Partner in a law firm.
CIO – Financial Advisor.
Granted they all profess to be avid readers and book lovers but there is no mention of any bookselling experience.
As for their business model, their “entire process of selling used books was developed internally using the latest technology and supply methods.”
And what does that latest technology do?
Their software automatically sets a book’s price below that offered by any of their competitors.
Wikipedia states that up to 40% of their inventory is listed for a penny.
This is what we are up against.