Essential Need Competitors

“Be fair to customers and our employees, promote literacy, be kind to the environment and remain financially viable so we may continue.” — Our Mission Statement in the words of HPB Co-Founder Pat Anderson It was 1972. Corporate dropout Ken Gjemre and fellow bibliophile Pat Anderson opened a used-book shop in an old laundromat in Dallas, Texas. They ran ads in the local paper, declaring “We Buy Books,” and soon found themselves with a few thousand books and hordes of customers. “You could stir them with a stick,” Ken said. And now? With more than 120 stores across the country, plus a website with customers and sellers around the globe, we’ve become America’s largest family-owned retailer for new and used books. Our founders coined the phrase, “We buy and sell everything ever printed or recorded (except yesterday’s newspaper).” And if you’ve been to one of our stores, you know that’s true. Ken and Pat weren’t just talking about our enormous selection, but about our refusal to censor products. As Ken said, “We don’t let others, or ourselves, determine what our customers should read.” To this day, we’ll shelve and sell just about anything, from The Diary of Anne Frank to The History of Farting. We might chuckle at the titles, but we won’t censor them. Half Price Books is committed to the community. We've been supporting literacy and environmental groups for more than 40 years and will continue working together to carry on the mission and causes of our founders. Each day when we go to work, we hope to do two things: share our favorite things with our friends, and help make the world a little better. That includes recycling and donating more than a million of our overstock books each year to local nonprofits and organizations around the world. Learn more about how we give back. Our goal of helping to make the world a little better also touches each and every HPB employee. This employee-centric culture began at inception with the notion of sharing profits with the staff

ThriftBooks is the world’s largest online, independent seller of used books, having sold more than 160 million used and new books since its inception. Founded in Seattle in 2003 and backed by KCB Management, ThriftBooks operates multiple processing centers throughout the US that purchase, grade, and distribute used and rare/collectible books. ThriftBooks utilizes proprietary software to identify and list books, as well as a sophisticated pricing model that dynamically prices books across a variety of online platforms, including ThriftBooks.com, Amazon, eBay, and others. Customers who shop at ThriftBooks.com can earn free books through the company’s loyalty program, ReadingRewards.

It all started with one bag of books rescued from landfill. Since 2002, we've grown into a certified B Corp and one of the world's largest online sellers of preloved books and media. Everything we do helps us read more and waste less. With $270M+ in annual sales, we sell to customers in 190+ countries, which is made possible by our global teams across the US, UK and Hungary. Our mission hasn't changed since day one. We want to be the planet's bookstore and we're doing that by protecting the planet, supporting charities and championing a circular economy. Every year we reuse or recycle over 85 million books, and we've rehomed more than 100 million so far. Through World of Books, you can buy preloved and new books, or sell us the ones you've finished with for cash. That's fewer books gathering dust, less in landfill, and more in the hands of people who will love them. For us, purpose and performance go hand in hand. The more we grow, the more books we keep in circulation, the more readers we reach, and the bigger the difference we make for people and planet. The preloved books market is a huge global opportunity, and with our scale, supplier relationships and marketplace reach, we're ready to lead the way. If you want to help us do that, you're in the right place. Read more. Waste less.