ThriftBooks

Our Story

ThriftBooks – Read More. Spend Less.

ThriftBooks started in 2003 with a pick-up truck of used books stashed in a storage unit, listing books solely on Amazon.com. Our first book sold was the beloved children’s classic, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. Over the years, we’ve added regional processing centers across the country and hundreds of employees. Throughout this time, we also built our processes to purchase, grade, and distribute used and rare/collectible books.

Today we are the world’s largest online independent used book seller, operating with state-of-the-art automation and advanced analytics in a safety-first environment. Our primary customer web and mobile destination is our brand home, ThriftBooks.com. We also continue to sell on Amazon, eBay, Abe, and other commerce sites where booklovers gather. We hand-grade every book in our inventory and offer books in a variety of formats and conditions for our customers. We pride ourselves on our wide assortment of quality used, accurately graded books provided to our customers at everyday low prices. Our award-winning customer service team and our 5-star rating on Trustpilot, with over 640,000 reviews, provide our customers assurance to shop with confidence while finding books they love and look forward to reading. Our ReadingRewards loyalty program continually delight loyal customers with free books awarded for their points earned.

Our partnerships extend into communities across the country. Our profit-sharing relationship with libraries large and small enables us to support these valuable institutions by finding homes for ex-library books and working with Friends of Library groups across the country to provide financial support for their continued success. We give back to our communities through our ThriftBooks Cares pillar, designed to connect with communities in the US and globally donating books to those in need—including schools, non-profit organizations, and those rebuilding after natural disasters.

We believe in books and the power of the written word to impact lives and societies across the globe, and we cherish our role in saving books to live another day to educate, entertain, inspire, and transform lives.

thriftbook cares

ThriftBooks takes our role in the reading community seriously, and this is why we focus on 3 core tenets when it comes to our social responsibility.

Charitable Support Since its inception, ThriftBooks has purchased books from charities allowing them to focus on doing good in the community and applying the funds towards programs that give back. Over the last decade, ThriftBooks has provided more than $100 million to charity partners through its purchase of reading materials.

Environmental Impact Truckloads of books come through our warehouse doors every day. Tens of thousands of these books are sold to customers worldwide or shipped in bulk internationally. Material we can’t use are sent to recycling plants, where each ton of 100% post-consumer copy paper (approximately 1.4 tons of books) saves 24 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 4,100 kilowatts of electricity, and 60 pounds of air pollution. ThriftBooks recycles millions of pounds of books every year.

Literacy ThriftBooks Gives partners with non-profits to provide for underserved communities, including Title I schools, prison libraries, and international literacy programs. Whether donating books or volunteering our time, we focus on promoting reading and its benefits in the world.