The Green Frugal

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At Cash4Books.net, we have always offered free shipping, but we’re always looking for ways to make it even easier for you to sell your books to us.  Unlike many of our competitors, we have a very low minimum order requirement.  You can send us just one book or you can ship larger orders in as many boxes as you need.  Let’s explore the options we have available with the Pros and Cons of each:

1. U.S.Postal Service Media Mail

This method is available for shipments of any size, and is recommended for shipments of order values under $35.00.

• Pro: Print the labels from your own printer.
• Pro: Accepted at post offices everywhere or conveniently picked up by your regular mail carrier.
• Con: Estimated delivery time is 4 – 14 business days depending upon how far you are from us.    (Longer shipping time means a longer wait for your payment)
• Con: No automatic tracking and not insured against loss or damage

2. FedEx Ground Shipping

Earlier this month, we  upgraded our FedEx system to print ship ready labels.  Instead of having a bar code page that you have to take to an authorized FedEx Returns processing center, you can print the new ship ready label from your own computer.  Just tape it right to the box you’re sending and find the nearest location that accepts FedEx Ground.  Based on your order zip code, we’ll provide you with the four locations closest to you and you can find even more on the FedEx website. There’s no longer any need to go to a special in line for someone to scan your shipping instructions page.

This option is automatically enabled for shipments of order values over $35.00.

• Pro: Print the label from your own printer.
• Pro: Estimated delivery time is 2-6 business days.
• Pro: Tracking number included and automatically insured against loss or damage
• Con:  FedEx drop off sites may be farther than your front door.

3. Walk-in & Drop off

This option is displayed for customers with zip codes within driving distance of our warehouse: 15370 SW Millikan Way, in Beaverton, Oregon

• Pro: Can be used for any size order.
• Pro: Free parking outside our door, or just a short walk from the Beaverton Creek MAX station.
• Pro: Get to meet our great Customer Care Team in person and browse our bargain section while you wait.
• Pro: Receive a walk-in credit and immediate payment.
• Con:  We have only one location and drop off times are limited to 8am-6pm, Monday –Friday.

So, the choice is yours.  We’re willing to help in any way that we can.  If you don’t have a printer (or if, like mine, it is inevitably out of ink when you need to print something important,) you can contact our Customer Care Team by email using the Contact Us form  and select “Labels Request” as the subject . They’ll print some labels here and mail them to you as fast as they can!

For more tips on how to package your books for shipping, see the Cash4Books FAQ or this earlier entry on the Green Frugal.

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That’s the most frequent question we hear from our customers looking to sell used books at Cash4Books.net.  It would be nice to have an easy answer, but the truth is there are almost as many answers as there are books.  Let me explain just a few of the universal truths of used book buying.

Universal #1:  Ye olde basic law of supply and demand.

Blame Adam Smith.  While Smith wasn’t the first one to come up with the idea, he was the first to popularize the “Law of supply and demand.”  In the used book world, this means we base much of our decision to purchase a book on how well it is currently selling and how many copies we have on hand.

At Cash4Books, we consider this decision as both an art and a science.  The science comes from data we accumulate from our own sales history and current online marketplaces.  Skilled and experienced bookselling professionals who review of our buying list provide the art.  Our current buying list includes over 280,000 unique ISBNs.  And, yes, it really does change daily.  Here’s our example list of some that we’ve bought recently.

Universal #2:  Condition, condition, condition.

Just like “location, location, location” are the three most important things in real estate, “condition, condition, condition” is what sells a used book.   Cash4Books loves books and knows that you do too.  However,   some books have been ‘loved a little too much’ to appeal to another reader.  We try our best to let sellers know what we expect on our Condition Requirements page .   So, if your book isn’t in a condition that the next reader will love too, we can’t purchase it.

Universal #3:  Survival of the fittest

In the world of books this could be rephrased as “survival of the best fitting packaging.”  Modern postal and freight transportation systems are efficient, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your book package will be treated with tender loving care from the time it leaves your door until the time it arrives at ours.  Your book will be handled, bundled, conveyor belted, sorted and resorted countless times between points A and B.  Unless your books are carefully packed in sturdy boxes using strong tape, they may arrive at Cash4Books looking like this:

If you don’t want your books to arrive looking like these we suggest following these simple steps:

• Use a sturdy box. Don’t use thin cardboard boxes (such as cereal boxes or shoe boxes), as those will not protect the books in shipment.

• If necessary, cut the box down to fit your books  and  use bubble wrap, wadded plastic grocery bags, or wadded newspaper to fill any remaining empty space after cutting the box down.  Don’t use styrofoam peanuts, as they crumble and get between pages.
• Affix your  shipping label with clear packing tape on  the top of the box.

• Use plenty of packing tape — the reinforced kind, if possible – and wrap it all the way around the box in several places.

• Keep the weight of each box under 40 pounds. While there is a weight limit of 70 pounds per box, but we advise going no more than 40 pounds per box.  Boxes over 40 pounds often result in boxes falling apart and damaged and/or lost books!

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Take thousands of discounted books, a great staff of volunteers, hundreds of bargain-minded shoppers; add in three days of beautiful weather and one great charity and what do you get?  That’s the recipe for a very successful McKenzie Books Charity Sidewalk Sale!

Last week, McKenzie Books sold nearly 2,700 books priced at 50¢ and $1.00 to raise a total of $1,652.57 for our favorite charity, DonorsChoose.org. We’ve already sent the money we collected to help fund eleven new classroom projects for teachers who requested books and supplies.  You can see more about the projects we helped by clicking here.

Putting together an event like this took a lot of effort.  In addition to their regular work, McKenzie Books employees volunteered an additional 23 hours of their time before and after hours to the sale.  They did everything from making sure our signs were ready, to cleaning up after the sale, and boxing nearly 1,000 unsold books to go to their new home at the Beaverton Friends of the Library Book Corner.

Our staff had the privilege of meeting so many of our regular and new customers face-to-face.   We hope all of you had as much fun as we did!

As we head back to work after a weekend where we celebrated our country’s independence, it’s great a time to remember the freedom and opportunity that reading gives us.  Thanks for helping share that freedom with a new generation of students by becoming “citizen philanthropists” at our Charity Sidewalk Sale.