Random Job #217: Buying Books at Thrift Stores

by Hava Lyon | More from this Blogger

08 Jan 2007 11:00 PM

One huge benefit to the Internet is the amount of jobs that have been created from it. In this particular case, you are sent out to the thrift stores in your city to buy non-fiction books to be sold on Amazon.com or eBay.com. Apparently this company, Aquaricon, makes enough money off their sales to pay you to buy these books on their behalf.

When you get to the thrift store or warehouse, you will call the company's operator and tell them the ISBN number on the back of each book, the cost, and any defects. The operator will give you an instant yes or no decision. You then buy the book using Aquaricon's money (which I don't know how that part works--do they send you a pre-loaded debit card? I didn't see this info anywhere. Sorry.) You then mail the books to the customer every second business day, and you use prepaid shipping labels off of the Internet to do that shipping. The pay for a part-time employee is $0.75 per book purchased plus $0.50 per book shipped plus $2.50 per trip to the post office. If you are a full-time employee, you are paid $30,000 per year paid semi-monthly, or the fees above, whichever is higher. They also reimburse for the time you spend on the cell phone with the operator at 3.5 cents per minute. This seems to be a very aboveboard job, although certainly a bit unusual--I had never heard of it before anyway. Perhaps I need to crawl out from underneath my rock more often.

Anyway, if this is something you are interested in, just know that you have to live within 30 miles of a major city center; have a computer, printer, and the Internet; cell phone with free long distance and Internet browser; and a car. You also cannot be employed elsewhere full-time or be a full-time college student.

If this still sounds like it would be a good fit for you, please send your resume to agents@aquaricon.com If anyone ends up getting this job, please tell me--I would love to hear an update!

Learn more about Hava Lyon

Hello, my name is Hava or Havs (depending on my mood and yours!) I am a freelance writer who writes for several blogs, both paid ones such as this one, and personal blogs.

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Julie Gentry (5915) 08 Jan 2007 11:01 PM

That does explain some things! Our local thrift shops have warning signs up that say to notify their security immediately if you see someone scanning the ISBNs. Sounds likes they're not welcome in some places ;-). I know that many of the thrift shops we frequent have raised their prices, trying to find that point where it's unprofitable for the auction resellers!

Thanks for the info!

Hava Lyon (1545) 09 Jan 2007 09:35 PM

Hey Julie, thanks for the feedback! I didn't realize that thrift stores were doing that. I wonder why. If they sell the book to auctioneers or if they sell the book to a regular patron, they still make the same amount of money. In fact, they would probably sell more books to auctioneers in one transaction than they would to the average consumer. It seems like they would encourage this trend instead of trying to fight against it. Very interesting, either way.

Thanks for reading!

Havs

Carey Bunker (147) 13 Jan 2007 09:40 AM

Wow-I've never heard of doing such a thing either-though I'm surprised that used book stores would care. It's not like the buyer is purchasing it for any less. It's so intriguing that I almost wish I had the time to apply and do it- I love shopping for books! :)

Julie Gentry (5915) 14 Jan 2007 03:41 AM

I know our thrift shop hates resellers, and tries to price things high enough so it's not worth it for them. The reasoning is that if it's a person's business to buy and resell thrift shop things, they'll know what's valuable and what's not, come in and buy only the best and leave the rest. Who wants to go into a thrift store with only the lower quality stuff? Not me. I do buy a lot of junk *s*, but it's usually because I'm buying something nice at the same time. If the nice stuff wasn't there, I wouldn't go.