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I do this all the time with Amazon's Trade-In Program. A couple of times a year, I look at my book shelf and video games. If I haven't read/played them within t
by Lewisham 13y ago
I do this all the time with Amazon's Trade-In Program. A couple of times a year, I look at my book shelf and video games. If I haven't read/played them within the last 6 months, and have no compelling reason to hold onto them for the foreseeable 6 months, into the box they go.
Amazon then gives me a pre-paid shipping label.
I find the whole process enjoyable. "How much will Amazon give me for this?" is an exciting game. Then things go in the box, and you can visibly see the consumer weight you're lifting off your shoulders. Then you get to see the fruits of your labors with a newly empty bookshelf.
The money they give me for it is only a small part of the benefits I feel from doing it. I try to do the same with Goodwill donations of old clothes, but I have to admit some laziness in actually getting down to the Goodwill (which is essentially zero difference from driving the box to the UPS Store. Procrastination is a weird and wonderful thing.)
- akristofcak 13y agoWell, something good came out of this silly idea: I had no idea Amazon does this!! Thanks!
- benguild 13y agoYou can make a little bit more money by shipping them to Fulfilled By Amazon and selling them at a higher price with Amazon Prime. It's great for things that people don't buy enough to warrant their trade-in program, and there's the risk of the occasional return, but it gets it all out of your house with really cheap shipping.
- incision 13y agoGood idea. I make a point to check to see if any used, Fulfilled by Amazon copies are available when I'm about to buy a book. It's used pricing and the weight of Amazon behind the purchase without the cost of shipping thanks to my Prime membership.
- famousactress 13y agoI've also used http://glyde.com/ http://glyde.com/ to do the same.
- bliker 13y agodo you know if they ship to EU?
- famousactress 13y agoThey do not :(
- mixedbit 13y agoNice approach. I personally can't force myself to get rid of books that I've read, which is not very rational, because I very rarely reread books. But other stuff I try to get rid of, or not buy at all.
- joecurry 13y agoExtremely interested in this idea - I've gotten to the point of pricing out FedEx-Kinko's to cut the bindings off ($1/ book actually) and then scanning them dual-sided into Evernote with searchable text (if you're a Pro member it scans inside PDFs). Still can get past the cognitive dissonance of letting my bookshelf go.
- kryten 13y agoNever get rid of books. I got rid of a lot of mine and thoroughly regret it. Why? I now have children who want to read them.
- cpeterso 13y agoThanks! I had no idea Amazon did this. The FAQ says they buy textbooks, but the page shows recent non-textbook books I've purchased as items I could "get up to $10.98". Have you sold books before? I usually sell my books to my local Half Price Books, but they pay a pittance.
- specialist 13y agoGiven the insulting price offered by Half Price, I just started giving all my books to my local public library. They mostly auction them to raise money. I may check out the Amazon Trade In option mentioned upthread.
- bumbledraven 13y agoI sold 50 or so of my books through Amazon when I moved. I usually got a great price through the trade-in program, which is nice because you get paid as soon as they receive the book from you, but if I didn't think the trade-in price was high enough, I just sold it through the Amazon seller program. This is a service where you ship your books to them, name the price you're willing to sell each one for, they warehouse them for you, and when someone buys one they ship it out and cut you a check. Pretty great.
- cpeterso 13y agoThanks for the Amazon Seller suggestion. I didn't know about that either. <:)
- tomkarlo 13y agoI wish I could just bar code in media and books, accept / reject the prices en masse and then generate the shipping label to send it to Amazon. I'd be a lot more inclined to send in stuff if the process was a little more streamlined. Update: apparently there's an Android app for that: http://www.amazon.com/Cash4Books-net-Cash4Books-Scan-Sell-Books/dp/B006CVVRBC http://www.amazon.com/Cash4Books-net-Cash4Books-Scan-Sell-Bo... ... wonder if it does games too.
- effbott 13y agoSomething like that already exists: http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/one-click-selling/ http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/one-click-selling/
- tomkarlo 13y agoThings like books and games are fluid enough markets that the difference in the price I'm going to get between Amazon and other outlets is going to be fairly small. I just want a faster way to scan in ISBN codes so I don't have to enter them manually. Sold seems like it might be good for hard-to-price items like antiques, but for media it just seems like a way to end up paying two companies' fees instead of just one.