Buying/Selling Used Books--A Job for the Digital Age

The online journal Slate recently had an article by a man describing his job buying and selling used books. The guy has a scanner and software linked to Amazon.com's book marketplace. He goes to thrift shops and library book sales and scans the barcodes of nearly every book there. After scanning the barcode, the software will tell him how much the book sells for used on Amazon, as well as how popular the book is. Based on these numbers, the man will then make a decision as to whether to buy the book or pass on it. He then offers the books for sale on Amazon. People make a living doing this work--he describes some people making $1,000 a week. (Although the author describes how the job can be humiliating.) This is a low stakes version of arbitrage going on throughout the world with the development of the Internet and high-speed communications technologies.