burntwire brothers wrote in Half-Price Books - What do you think?:Half-Price Books right by my house has turned me off almost completely from visiting their stores. They had a nice amount of 1st edition stuff but when they want $20-50 a module in FN or lesser condition they are just assholes. I don't even charge close to the prices they have. Hell they may even start to make NK prices look good.
Badmike wrote in Half-Price Books - What do you think?:A good post about how haphazard this process is:Yeti Factory
Badmike wrote in Half-Price Books - What do you think?:I could have never started selling online without HPB. In the 90s, they truly priced items for "half price" thus most books, modules and boxed sets could be had for half cover, and resold at a profit even if you just asked cover price. Sometime in the last decade they decided gaming items were collectible (whether they were or not) and priced them accordingly, often for prices far more than Ebay or other outlets. Here we are in 2016 and they don't seen to realize they are in a global marketplace where I can check Amazon, Ebay and NobleKnight on my tablet while in the store and realize the $35 they are charging for a banged up copy of B2 is terrible. They mostly cater to the impulse buyer now and staff most of their stores with employees who are unaware of most prices on anything (they price based on other online sources such as Amazon or just guess). A good post about how haphazard this process is:Yeti FactoryI find it's true that usually when they are rushed they will give you the worst offer, but those are often times you can find the best prices on used gaming stuff on the shelves...they have no time to research the prices and thus will often put them out there at affordable amounts. Mike B.
Badmike wrote in Half-Price Books - What do you think?:But music CDs should literally be a few bucks each what with Amazon prime music and Itunes charging a buck a song. Does anyone out there still buy new/used music CDs anymore?Mike B.
Badmike wrote in Half-Price Books - What do you think?:Does anyone out there still buy new/used music CDs anymore?
carpocratian wrote in Half-Price Books - What do you think?:I worked at Half Price Books for a few months several years ago (seasonal job).Their major selling point to employees is a 30% discount on used items (less for remainders) and the ability to buy stuff that hasn't reached the floor yet. As a result, they end up with people who are willing to work for poor wages (versus what's expected of you) and can adapt to constantly shifting, irregular hours. That means that virtually every employee is a big customer of the store, too, so they end up giving a good part of each paycheck back to the store. It also means that most of the really good stuff never makes it to the floor to be sold, unless it comes from a genre or topic that nobody in the store collects. That sucks for the customer, but makes employee retention much easier for the business.When it comes to pricing, they have certain price points that they default to on regular items (ex. $4.99 for paperbacks, $5.99 for hardbacks), but they still check their internal database on most items to make sure it isn't worth more. By "worth," they mean the amount that it tends to sell for at other Half Price stores. If it's something that's more difficult to price (comic books, for example), they may pass them on to an in-store "expert" (i.e. an employee who collects that type of thing). There isn't much oversight in the process, so you can end up with things that are really overpriced and things that are really underpriced, depending on the knowledge of the employee in question. Overall, though, they don't worry too much about the price of an item. Most stores buy thousands of books and other items every day, so the pricing and shelving process is really hectic. If a book goes on the shelf and it's overpriced, it will eventually be marked down and sell at that time. They would rather lose a little money here and there than use valuable employee time to be more careful.When people sell items to HPB, they use their internal database (and guesses) to figure out how much they can sell each item for and how long it's likely to be on the shelf before it gets sold. They come up with a number for the group of items that the customer brought in, and then offer them a percentage of that. The percentage can vary a bit, but it's usually in the 10-20% range. It can be even less for bestsellers, since they get so many of those. It can be a little higher for items that they don't see often. You can almost always do better selling your stuff on eBay or Amazon, or even (in the case of bestsellers) at garage sales.Most of the used books in a given store were sold to that store (no redistribution among stores), so that's why the selections can vary so much. If there aren't any roleplayers selling stuff to a particular store, it's unlikely to have much in the way of rpgs in stock. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, for example, there is only one store with a big selection of rpgs, and a few others that have middlin' ones. Despite the high markup on the books (versus what they paid for them), the chain isn't as profitable as you might imagine. That's mainly because of poor decisions and management at their headquarters. They are overbuilding right now, and that will catch up to them eventually.