Getting a second shelf life
Goodwill partners with Amazon to sell its used books online
Until this month, any books that sat unwanted at local Goodwill Industries stores for longer than three weeks were unceremoniously taken off the shelves and sold as scrap to a recycler.
Now, thanks to the broad reach of Amazon.com, the books have a second chance to find a good home and Goodwill is able to squeeze more revenue out of its donated items.
Goodwill has started selling books through the world's largest online retailer, shipping orders to buyers across the country and boosting its hiring at the same time.
"It's giving us some revenue, and it's giving us an opportunity to employ four people and train them in operating an e-commerce business," said Florence M. Conti, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Western New York.
The books are a recent addition to an e-commerce operation that began three years ago with clothing, collectibles and other items sold through Goodwill's national Web site.
Online sales already account for 14 percent of local Goodwill sales, Conti said.
It wasn't too long ago that Conti was criticizing the online auction craze as harmful to Goodwill and other not-for-profits. In a 2004 letter to The Buffalo News, Conti complained that the number and the quality of items donated to Goodwill had declined as more people chose to sell them online instead.
"Without merchandise, we can't help individuals, and the community as a whole suffers," she wrote.
Now, Goodwill has embraced this former threat to its business.
The local Goodwill sells items through a Web site run by the national organization, which charges a lower fee than the companies that run other online auction sites, she said.
"Everything we get from it stays right here," Conti said.
As donated merchandise comes into Goodwill's administrative facility on William Street, employees sort through the items to find something unusual that has good resale potential.
Employees take a picture of the item, upload the picture to www.shopgoodwill.com and write a description for it.
Monday, the local Goodwill was selling a six-string acoustic guitar for a minimum bid of $10.36 and two Littmann stethoscopes for a minimum bid of $32, among 405 total items.
Framed pictures of performers such as Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson have been popular, Conti said.
"We recently sold a trumpet for $510 for a sergeant who wanted it shipped to Iraq," she said. Army Sgt. Van Waller is stationed at Camp Victory, Iraq, with the 56th Army Band.
Goodwill employed four people to handle its initial e-commerce work and, after exploring the idea for about six months, added another four workers when it expanded into books.
The books are sold online through Amazon after they haven't found a buyer at one of Goodwill's six area stores. Goodwill rotates all of its store inventories every three weeks.
Workers start by scanning the bar code on the book into a computer, which gives Amazon's recommended sale price.
"They've set it up so we can easily distinguish what is sellable and what isn't," said Moreen Pfohl, director of donated goods and retail for Goodwill.
This price is based on popularity, how common the book is and other factors.
Between 11 percent and 15 percent of books can be resold, with Deepak Chopra books and college textbooks among the better sellers, said Bianca Zurek, the e-books manager.
"We have yet to find any rhyme or reason to this," Zurek said.
Goodwill will only put a book up for auction if Amazon believes it will sell for at least $2, because Amazon keeps $1.35 per book no matter the price.
On a recent visit to Goodwill, Pfohl picked up a copy of "Atkins for Life," scanned it in and found that Amazon thought it would sell for just 1 cent.
So the book was tossed into a bin to later be sold, based on weight, to a salvager.
Goodwill has sold 137 books online since Oct. 8, Conti said, and as of Monday afternoon had 754 more available at www.amazon.com/shops/wnybooks.
The books sold late last week were going to Washington State, California, Maryland and Georgia — where someone bought "Separation of Power" by Vince Flynn for $9.93.
Vicmali Fuentes works as a lister and shipper for Goodwill, one of the four employees in the e-book operation.
Fuentes, who began working at Goodwill five months ago, starts her day by printing out all of the book purchases made over the previous day and night.
She then finds the book on Goodwill's shelves, puts it into an envelope and mails it off to the winning bidder.
"It's very interesting," said Fuentes, 27, of Buffalo, who has a condition known as bilateral congenital club hands.
She said she hopes to put her work experience to good use to "find a job, a really good job."
The e-commerce operation allows Goodwill to employ more people who have a disability, who may be a victim of domestic abuse or who have a criminal record or a history of substance abuse.
"It's a good way to raise money for our education programs. We have people with disabilities. This is also good job training," Zurek said.
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