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I used to work in the "Merchant Technology" (third-party sellers) team at Amazon, and textbooks have been a very big part of that business for many years now.

I used to work in the "Merchant Technology" (third-party sellers) team at Amazon, and textbooks have been a very big part of that business for many years now. The new thing here is the "Trade-In" program, which lets you ship your used textbooks to Amazon and get paid for all of them right away (instead of listing them and waiting for someone to buy them): http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=2205237011 http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=2205237011 My old boss is the manager of the Trade-In team, if anyone has any questions about it...

Maven911 17y ago
Yes, how much money did you make at Amazon ? : D
jacoblyles 17y ago
It would be much better if there were a "trade-in" button on the textbook's description page. Instead, there is a restriction that the user has to search through the textbook portal page in order to see the trade-in button. I'm not sure why this restriction is in place, unless they wanted to limit the number of people using the option at first.
- mbrubeck 17y ago
  I'm told there are plans to add a trade-in button to the product detail page, but they were delayed first by a technical problem and then because of the holidays. (Amazon will not launch unproven changes during the critical holiday shopping season.) The change will go through A/B testing before general launch, of course.
dangrossman 17y ago
Interesting. I looked up a brand new book on Artificial Intelligence I paid around $90 for at my university's book store. Amazon is offering $10 to trade it in. I could get much more than that selling it to one of the buyers that set up out the back of trucks at the end of each term on campus. Edit: I also looked up a linear algebra text I paid around the same for, and the trade-in value there was $43. Seems like there's a large variation even for latest edition text books.
- throw_away 17y ago
  did you use russell and norvig? 2e is $10, but the new 3e is worth $47.15.
- mbrubeck 17y ago
  My friend at Amazon writes, "We know that pricing isn’t as competitive as we want it. We are working hard with our book refurbishers to fix that."

Maven911 17y ago

Yes, how much money did you make at Amazon ? : D

jacoblyles 17y ago

It would be much better if there were a "trade-in" button on the textbook's description page. Instead, there is a restriction that the user has to search through the textbook portal page in order to see the trade-in button. I'm not sure why this restriction is in place, unless they wanted to limit the number of people using the option at first.

mbrubeck 17y ago
I'm told there are plans to add a trade-in button to the product detail page, but they were delayed first by a technical problem and then because of the holidays. (Amazon will not launch unproven changes during the critical holiday shopping season.) The change will go through A/B testing before general launch, of course.

dangrossman 17y ago

Interesting. I looked up a brand new book on Artificial Intelligence I paid around $90 for at my university's book store. Amazon is offering $10 to trade it in. I could get much more than that selling it to one of the buyers that set up out the back of trucks at the end of each term on campus. Edit: I also looked up a linear algebra text I paid around the same for, and the trade-in value there was $43. Seems like there's a large variation even for latest edition text books.

throw_away 17y ago
did you use russell and norvig? 2e is $10, but the new 3e is worth $47.15.
mbrubeck 17y ago
My friend at Amazon writes, "We know that pricing isn’t as competitive as we want it. We are working hard with our book refurbishers to fix that."