Reviews and comparison of the popular book buying sites Amazon Trade-In, Zapper, Ziffit, We Buy Books, AbeBooks, FatBrain and Momox.
****Update October 2021: Since I wrote this post I’ve started up BookSpiffy.com, a website all about moving on your old and secondhand books with loads of ideas for what you can do with them, whether it’s selling them or other options. An updated version of this post, and more on the same topic is included here: UK Online Book Buyers Reviews.****
When trying to create some extra space by purging my office and the rest of our home of some of the hundreds of books we’ve amassed over the years I started to look at options for selling them. I could sell them on ebay or open an Amazon shop but really wanted something easier that wouldn’t require the hassle of listing items and managing the sales, and certainly can’t be bothered getting up at stupid o’clock to haul them all to a car boot sale. It’s not something I’ve ever looked into before so was pleased to come upon a range of websites who specialise in buying second hand books for a fixed price. The ones that kept coming up in search results for UK sellers were these 7:
  |  |  | |
 |  |  |
But which is best? As an experiment I picked a selection of mixed books that we’d like to sell to see what offers I’d get from the various book buying sites, what sort of books sell best where, and how the process works in each case.
The books I looked at fell into a number of categories:
a. academic text books, mainly psychology, economics and management topics
b. business, management and self-help books of a less academic nature
c. some very old and collectable books on philosophy, politics and sociology topics
d. general interest non-fiction – travel, health, art etc
e. novels
I selected 302 books in total across these categories and went to see what each of the websites would offer me. I read all their help files and scouted around forums to see what comments I could pick up about them all. Below are my findings, conclusions on the sites and how best to use them.
First here are some numbers:
Book buying sites - comparing my offers
| We Buy Books | Amazon Trade-In | Ziffit | Fatbrain | AbeBooks | Zapper | Momox | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. offers made | 35 (12%) | 26 (9%) | 51 (17%) | 16 (5%) | 5 (2%) | 50 (17%) | 0 |
| Total offer | £39.20 | £68.12 | £61.20 | £42.05 | £19.72 | £34 | 0 |
| Average per book | £1.12 | £2.62 | £1.20 | £2.63 | £3.94 | 68p | 0 |
| Top single price | £6.94 | £13.50 | £6.69 | £9.10 | £7.80 | £4.08 | 0 |
| Lowest single price | 1p | 25p | 30p | 75p | 75p | 20p | 0 |
- Ziffit and Zapper made a greater number of offers than the rest. AbeBooks and FatBrain made the least.
- The highest total offer was from Amazon Trade-In, who combined both relatively high prices and a reasonable number of offers.
- The best average prices were offered at AbeBooks. But then they offered on so few books that there were no lower priced items to bring the average down. Next best prices were at FatBrain and Amazon Trade-In with an average price of about £2.60 per offer. WeBuyBooks and Ziffit were a fair bit lower at around £1.20, and Zapper much lower on average than the rest at well under £1 per item on average.
- The highest single offer I received was £13.50 on an academic book from Amazon Trade-In, and the lowest just 1p for a novel at We Buy Books.
- Momox didn’t make offers on ANY of the 302 books, not even the ones for which I had decent offers at all the other sites. If anyone has managed to sell books to them I’d be very interested to hear about your experience. I won’t be bothering with them again though.
Offers by Type of Book (%)
| We Buy Books | Amazon Trade-In | Ziffit | Fatbrain | AbeBooks | Zapper | Momox | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academic & business | 28% | 14% | 26% | 9% | 2% | 24% | 0 |
| General non-fiction | 9% | 6% | 15% | 0 | 0 | 15% | 0 |
| Fiction | 6% | 1% | 2% | 1% | 1% | 5% | 0 |
- It transpired that groups a and b (academic and work related text books) had most appeal to the buying sites.
- Group c (old collectable books) cannot be sold that way, partly because they don’t generally have ISBN numbers, which all the sites required, but also because you really need specialist buyers to get the best price.
- Group d (general interest) did produce a few offers but the prices were low compared to the more academic books.
- On Group e (fiction) at most I received offers on 6% of them (from WeBuyBooks), but the prices were so low as to be not worth bothering with. There happened to be 1 paperback that they were all willing to buy, but even there the best offer I had was £1.02.
Overall Conclusions and Tips:
- The process is basically the same in all of the sites; you enter the ISBN’s or bar codes, they tell you what offers if any they’re prepared to make on those books, if you’re happy with it you accept the offer, they send you a postage label, you package and send the books to them by their designated method, they receive and check them, and assuming your books are accepted they pay you the agreed price.
- In all cases the postage is ‘free’, that is to say they take account of the postage within their offer.
- The books they wanted, and the prices they offered varied quite a bit across the sites. The sites also varied in the ease of use (eg some had Apps that let you scan bar codes rather than having to type them in), the postage and payment systems, and what happens if they reject books when they arrive.
- It’s extremely easy in all cases to both set up an account and sell your books.
- The sites with bar code scanners (Ziffit, Zapper and Amazon) are easiest to use, otherwise you have to manually enter your codes.
- The fact is that all of these services will offer you substantially less than you could potentially earn by selling your books via eBay, BUT it’s a lot less hassle and (assuming the condition meets their requirements) the prices are guaranteed.
- You will probably find that a fairly low percentage of your books attract offers. I had offers on only 9-17% of my books on the sites.
- Across all of them, I got the most offers on academic, management and technical type books.
- Very few fiction books receive offers.
- To get the best price on any given book you need to check it on all the sites. The difference between their offers can be substantial. For the reason above, I’d say it’s worth having accounts at all the sites I tested (apart from Momox).
- Some of the sites have minimum order levels. The highest was Momox at £20.
- Be realistic about the condition of your books. They’ll be rejected if they’re not in decent nick and in some cases you won’t get them back if they are rejected. Check the particular site’s terms and conditions to see exactly what they’ll accept, some are more picky than others.
- Take care when entering the book’s details. It matters which edition you have. If your code is on a sticker rather than directly on the book it may turn out not to be the correct one for that exact edition.
- If the book originally came with a dust cover or extras such as a CD, on these sites you’ll need to have those things or it may well be rejected.
- Bear in mind that the offers made vary from one day to the next. If you don’t take up their offer immediately it may vary, up or down.
- Payment methods and speeds vary. Payments are via one or more of; bank transfer, Paypal, cheque. I haven’t yet sent any books in so it remains to be seen how they’ll compare on speed of payment. However, judging by the forum posts it could take anything from a few days to several weeks to get your money.
- Amazon are different from the rest in that they pay with gift vouchers into your account rather than cash. I don’t mind this as I’m always buying from Amazon but it won’t suit everyone.
- None of them take books that don’t have an ISBN code, so no really old books. If you have old books to sell you need to use another method. In some cases you can contact the site directly via email with your books’ details. Or you can think about creating your own eBay or Amazon seller listings.
- If you have a special book you think may be worth quite a bit you’re better off going to a specialist site eg Blackwells or AbeBooks. I’ll be looking into those another time.
Bottom Line – who’s best?
If I had to pick just one of them, personally I’d go for Amazon Trade-In. They give better prices than most, a reasonable number of offers and most importantly free return of rejects. I don’t mind being paid in Amazon vouchers. Of the cash paying sites if I could only use one I’d pick Ziffit, because whilst their average rate is not the best they offer on more books so you’ll not only clear more space but end up with a higher total payout, also the scanner is very handy. Plus their feedback was probably a bit more positive than the rest. But as I say, to maximise your return and get rid of as many as you can you’d ideally need to use all of them and be canny about what you send where.
| | | |
| | |
Next steps
So now I’m planning to sell each of my books to whichever site offers the best price as long as I can hit their minimum order levels. I’ll separate out the ones that have been offered a good price (ie several pounds) by at least 2 of the sites and will look at selling them by a different means.
I’ll then be investigating what to do with the older books.
And then I’ll look at what to do about the books I didn’t get any offers on – that is, the vast majority of them!
Thanks Jo, very helpful and well written.
Thanks, Mick. Glad you found it useful 🙂
I just found a Zippit flyer and got very interested till I started pricing stuff – basic rate is 8p a paperback. Then looking for reviews, found quite a few people who are cross because ZIppit rejects books based on condition – and you lose them. They dont return them. There’s no redress, so that seems just too risky to me. I wouldn’t mind having to collect my rejects from the parcel drop-off point, but wouldn’t accept the risk of my stuff being either binned (which they claim) or falsely rejected and still kept by them.
So how did you get on with your project?
Hi Pam,
yes I read quite e few comments about books being rejected even when the sender believed they were in excellent condition, especially with some of the sites. I think I came across less of those type of comments about Ziffit but it still seems to happen. I also agree that the idea they have binned them seems pretty dodgy – how on earth do you know they haven’t just kept them? We need to find someone who’s worked there and is prepared to tell what actually goes on! Otherwise I suppose it just boils down to whether you’re prepared to take the risk, doesn’t it? That’s why I preferred Amazon in the end, at least with them you get the option of having the books returned.
To my embarrassment I STILL haven’t got round to sending mine in 😀 The ones I had offers on are still in boxes waiting for action! I did however get rid of lots of my old paperback novels by donating them to Oxfam via one of their supermarket deposit points. They’re perfectly clear that they sell what they can and send the rest to recycle.
I’d love to hear how you’re getting on with yours 🙂
Please do not use we buy books – this company is a scam .
The reviews for 2015 on Trust pilot are overwhelmingly negative
I dispatched and tracked my box of books early April 2015, which were safely delivered to them.
Yet I have failed to receive a check payment for handing my items in.
It has been more than a month they still have not paid no contacted me about the box of items.
When contacting them, the company said that there was an error.
And they had lost all of my account details.
The company has not offered me a solution to my problem and they still have not paid me.
It is now the 23 May 2015.
Avoid this company, they provide extremely poor customer service,
and have not offered a sincere apology.
Thanks for your input Kivir. That’s shocking customer service, isn’t it? It always amazes me that companies don’t seem to realise how quickly word spreads online about that sort experience. Sounds like one to avoid.
I’ve used we buy books around 20 times and would highly recommend. Never had any issues with payment and the staff have always been helpful.
That’s interesting, Bob. Thanks for letting us know about your experience of We Buy Books. I suppose as usual it’s the poor service that gets around more than the good. I wonder if they have different departments that act differently. Hopefully they can be more consistent in future.
ive been using we buy books for quite a while now and have had no problem with them,i must say ive used zapper,ziffit, and not as good as we buy books,ziffit do not return books not even if you offer to pay,do not use momox as they will rip you off, they have ripped me off for over £100,stick with we buy books they are the best…
Hi Jo,
I found this info very useful, thank you for taking the time to share it. I work in an Oxfam shop and we are currently using Ziffit. We find that it suits our needs well, but were interested in comparing the other sites, so it is great that you compiled this for us!
I would be interested to know if you can remember from the non fiction / academic and business book that you sold if there was any specific genre that stood out as a best seller?
Onece again , many thanks for this most useful information.
Hi Claire, thanks for your comment and I’m glad you found it useful. Of the ones I looked at the sites seemed to pay more for more serious academic books, especially those seen as ‘classics’ in their field – the type that students and researchers might buy and that are pretty expensive new. Most of the ones I was looking at were business/management/economics books but I’d guess the same principle would apply across other academic subjects. The management guru and self-help type books didn’t go as well. I would think that’s because there are so many copies around and they’re relatively cheap new.
Thanks also for your positive feedback on Ziffit, that’s good to know.
I sent 7 books I was offered about £14.00 for all of them £6.00 for one. Guess which one they rejected . All in the same condition won’t be using them again would rather give them away. Their terms are A recipe for thieves
Which site was this Margaret?
Yes i might be going with Ziffit as i was on Greenmetroplis and now its shut down but you still pay postage. Ive got so many i just want to clear some now and i think you can get rid of a lot at one time with Ziffit too. Theres too many of these sites,,i miss having actual shops where i live where you can go and swap books or they give you vouchers if you take books in. They have all shut down where i live now. There a good idea too!. I love reading but am loath to just give some away for nothing especially if their only once read. Thanks
I know what you mean, Rose, and it’s really hard to see a book as being worth nothing, especially if you’ve really enjoyed it yourself. At least donating them to a charity means it’ll go to a good cause though. In most cases you’re only going to get a couple of pounds per book and I bet you’d donate a couple of pounds direct to a charity without thinking twice.
Hi. We have just started a unique service for buying used books. We are prepared to at least double any offers you get from any of the other sites and pay you in advance. Yes, before you send us the books. We also offer you the chance to ask for the price that you want.
Thanks for the info Lubna and good luck with your site!
How does one contact you ?
Hi Pat 🙂
Lubna’s site has a contact form: Sell My Book
Hi Pat. Did you manage to find the site?
Hi Lubna. How do i find tour site?
Hi Lubna you advertise that you pay in advance yet when I went to your web site you say you pay as soon as you receive the books !!!!
Great help! Thank you for the time it took you to do all this to help others.
You’re welcome Chris, good luck in selling your books 🙂
We Buy Books (@We_Buy_Books twitter and We Buy Bookss Facebook) have the worst customer service and policies. If there’s a problem they withhold payment on any other unrelated books or offers. The customer advisors are stupid saying a ISBN can be duplicated on different books (not possible) because they entered one wrong in their database and refused to fix it or even consider they made an error. They denied receiving a book I sent because of this. I wasn’t bothered about the 78p but I was appalled at their stupidity and refusal to consider they made a mistake, or even check the error (proven by the actual ISBN listed by them which shows on all other sites as the book I sent). They take 24 hours to answer each email in part so you never get anywhere until they refuse to even respond to your actual query. Then they refuse to pay you. They will offer you more. And then find reasons to not pay you. Avoid them.
Hi Teresa, thanks very much for your input. It looks like people’s experiences with We Buy Books are pretty variable to say the least!
Many thanks to everyone for all your useful comments. Don’t think I’ll bother with any of those sites now but will make the effort to take with other items to a car boot sale. Yes, hard work but has been worth it in the past for fabrics, bags & kitchen utensils; got to clear the house somehow! Any books that don’t sell for 50p or £1 can then go to charity shops & save me any further hassle. That’s today’s plan, which might well change tomorrow!
Sell my book does not recognise any of the ISBNs I enter. Its not that it rejects them, it doesn’t recognise anything, even newish books. I’ve tried for ages, sorry but wasted my time and it just asks that you reenter the ISBN, and unlike ziffit that number disappears everytime you try.
Jo… a really useful site, thanks for spending the time to share all your research. Jo x
Thank you, Jo. You’re welcome 🙂
Hi Jo,
Great article! Did you continue with any further research on this? I would be very interested to know how you sold the remaining books
thanks,
Rachel
Hi Rachel
actually I’m in the process of updating this info with my progress and changes to the book buying sites. You’ve reminded me to get on with it, thanks!
Hi Jo thanks for all the info and the work you put in. I am currently hoping to sell my husband’s huge collection of books about Wellington and Napoleon, many of which he never opened ! Tried We buy books who offered £3 .20 for the first one which he bought for £30 so I was happy there but the next ones (all weighty tomes ) came in at 20p each. Not worth the effort!!!!
Watch out with WeBuyBooks. Website is not clear about the charges imposed for books they won’t take. £2.40 per title is taken from agreed sale price if company finds anything amiss. Have argued with them that approach is anti-competitive. Pity because they could win friends by simply not paying the original price and re-cycling books
Who will buy my pre ISBN books all are in good used condition but printed before the ISBN code was implemented
This is a great article – really useful and well written. Thanks
Hi, Jo! Thank you for saving me a huge headache attempting to sell my books to any of these legalised thieves. I knew they were going to be extremely low offers but I hadn’t realised fully just how horrendously scammy their terms and conditions are – I love books, I cherish them – but this has meant they’re now enjoying more of my home than I have for myself, lol, so something must give! BUT despite my great love for books… the smell of the pages, the beautiful cover artwork, the satisfaction of owning a physical collection… I would honestly rather burn them all than send them to these scammers. Refusing to return rejected items and rejecting items described by senders as “excellent”? That is absolutely diabolical. How do they stay afloat, let alone sleep at night??
I’m appalled by the findings of your experiment but even more appalled by the comments from people who have sent these sites books. I’m going to choose some of the books that I feel are worth more and see what amazon will offer. As for the hundreds, if not a thousand or more other books I’ve got, I’m going to donate them all to my local charity shop where they will either be bought and taken home by someone who truly wants to read them; or, alternatively eventually taken to a recycling plant and potentially turned into other books. Either way, the outcome is infinitely better than the idea of allowing those sites anywhere near the sacred pages of my beloved books!
I know I come across as crazy-sounding, but i make no apologies. There are few things in life that I find to be unpalatable to the point of feeling the need to write a 1000 word rant in response to a review article lol. One of those things is greed, especially when that greed is fed at the expense of those who may not be very flush financially and consider selling their books because they’re struggling for money. Or people who, like you, want to free up some space within the home – many of whom would probably send the books for the tiny price offered, and then not bother to follow up on the many items that failed the inspection by these cutthroats and were “rejected”, and “binned”, ie kept and sold on for 100% profit. How disgusting. How absolutely despicable.
Thank you again for your experiment and if you ended up managing to get through this entire comment. I know I can go on when I’m triggered like this!
All the best,
Kerry