The merits of Book Scanners

I was just having a conversation with a good friend recently about scanning books at the point of sale (before buying them). I came away confident in my position and he in his. I think that it really depends on what your business model is. If you are just trying to get a lot of inventory moving and have a venue to sell the mountains of penny books (he has his own bookstore as well as an online store) then it may be a good idea to just buy books in bulk. I however have started to move towards a different business model. While at the very beginning I would buy large lots of books for very cheap per book, I found it to be a lot of work and while there would be those hidden treasures, most would be junk. I now am trying to limit my inventory to higher priced and fast moving inventory, but less of it. It works well with trying to get an internship this summer also.

While some sellers think that they have the eagle eye and are proud of being able to spot books they want on the spot, I think that as they say, the pride comes before the fall. This seller will often miss good deals that are right in front of them. For example, I went to a sale on Saturday and there were 30,000 books there. I was able to go through and scan the ones that had barcodes, but still keep my eye on the older, non-barcoded books in order to be able to spot a deal. Using this method I saw a textbook with a great sales rank and worth $50. Otherwise, I would have had to take quite a bit of time to decipher if it was worth it or not and maybe would have made a wrong choice. Using a scanner doesn't mean you have to be an idiot with no idea what a good book looks like, it just means that you are humble enough to admit you don't know the price of every book online.

I look forward to your thoughts and some debate. Thanks