Secondhand books

Yesterday I wrote a blog about book publishers and the hard time they have to get involved in Internet. Funny is that books are a wanted commodity on Internet. Amazon.com and in Europe Bol.com have heavy traffic and are going to experience more traffic in the coming months with the Christmas season coming up.


With a counter Boekwinkeltjes proudly shows that it has broken the record

But book trading is not only left to the big companies. Especially second hand books and vintage books attract traffic. Yesterday the Dutch site http://www.boekwinkeltjes.nl/ (Book shoppies) broke a record. On its site more than 1 million secondhand books had been registered by 1500 participants, shops as well as private persons. The site is now 3 years old and has 4000 visitors daily. Annually it sells 20 per cent of the stock, roughly 200.000 books. Mind you the Dutch language is spoken by roughly 25 million people in the world. The combination of professional shops and private persons is interesting. The sight is still growing.

The organisation is aiming at 4000 participants and more than three million titels. Soon an English variation on the boekwinkeltjes.nl will be launched under the name of www.bookshoppies.com.

Recently I tried this site out and found the book I was looking for. The e-mail handling from Boekwinkeltjes to the seller went okay. And I got a mail telling me how to transfer the money. Now I waiting for the book. Private persons can offer 40 book titles for 1 euro. It is almost an incentive to clean your book shelves out.