When I tell you my experience at this store you will throw up in your mouth because it is horrific!
On a personal note I gave birth to a stillborn son six weeks ago. The baby's father couldn't handle the grief and moved to the East Coast (where he's from originally). In a desperate attempt to make money I put my sweet baby's furniture and all of my treasured possessions (the ones of any value) into a consignment shop. Theodore's father and I are both voracious readers of all topics, we would buy books by the pound and huge quantities in bulk from estate sales. He had quite a collection of books about the history of music, furniture construction, woodworking, building, architecture, travel, classic literature, the interpretation of great poetry, and metaphysical phenomena. While I had every book about the foundations of every great fashion house, the history of clothing design, sewing, knitting, bookbinding, writing, and creative organization techniques. We had fifteen 22" x 16" x 6" boxes full of books which I loaded into my vehicle and drove 58 minutes to a place called Half-Price books where I hoped to sell them and make enough to at least pay my car insurance. I had run a check on Amazon Seller on one of the boxes of books and the total value of that box was $231. I just couldn't wait for them to sell I needed the money now. It took the guy who unloaded my vehicle multiple trips with a dolly to unload all the boxes. While they went through and priced the hundreds of books I found 5 books on grieving the death of a child and dealing with stillbirth. My heart felt lifted as I read the jackets of these books because I wasn't the only one going through this heart-crushing devastation. I put the books on the counter and went out to my car to cry while they finished totaling up the books. After an hour I was called to the counter and told my offer was $30. To which my response was;
"American?"
The guy (who was 60 and had freaking enormous barbells in his ears) says: "yeah, cash...take it or leave it..."
"what is the trade value?"
"we offer a single amount cash is same as trade".
I looked down at a book that happened to be on the top of one of the many, many piles it was my latest awesome read by Reese Witherspoon called: 'Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits'. It also happens to be like number 2 or 3 on the Amazon top sellers list (it sells for $20.99 on Amazon and the cover price is $35). Half-Price books sell all of their books for half the cover price (hence the clever name) so they were going to sell that ONE book for $17.50 (so what percentage do I get out of the $17.50 get? Even if I received 30% which is pretty standard for resale I would have made $5.25, and that is only one out of hundreds (many of which were rare and early editions).
I didn't have the energy to tell them to fuck off and box all those books back up and drive them back to the storage unit and unload them in the rain. I just started to cry and went up to the cashier to get my whopping $30 (which is probably what I spent on gas to get there) and he said all chipper; "ready to check out?" and he grabbed my stack of books about how to deal with having a dead baby. "um no, the total on those five books is $47.50 and I just made $30 on a few hundred" I said this with huge tears hitting the counter as I passed then check out slip to the guy.
"oh man, that sucks".
Was he serious? I had to practically crawl out of the store I was so defeated. Oh! I almost forgot the best part, they make you take your containers and boxes out of the store when you leave. Luckily I had been taking them a few at a time as the worked. So I only had to carry a plastic tub when I made my final exit.
I sat in the car and cried because in all honesty all I really wanted was to leave with;
'Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your Baby' by Deborah L Davis, 'Always Within; Grieving the Loss of Your Infant' by Melissa L Eshleman, 'Broken Crayons Still Color: From Our Mess to God's Masterpiece' by Shelley Hitz and Deb Hall, 'Almost a Mother: Love, Loss, and Finding Your People When Your Baby Dies' by Christy Wopat, and 'Shattered: Surviving the Loss of a Child' by Gary Roe. in my arms. Yet again, I was going out the front doors empty handed... read more