[kristianp]

In my country (Australia), charity shops have only a poor book selection and there are no charity book shops. 2nd hand book shops are for profit, although I doubt the profit is very large.

Charity shops benefit the shoppers and the donators, who benefit from how easy it is to get rid of their stuff, compared to the alternatives that are time consuming or difficult.

[jermaustin1]

I ran the number on one that my wife and I would go to in Pennsylvania, and just based on the people I'd see checking out each time I was there, they made decent money.

Their model was, you give us a book, we give you $0.50 off a single book purchase. All books are $1. So if you gave them 25 books, you would get $12.50 in credit, but can only use $0.50 per book you bought. So you still end up giving them a profitable transaction. And most people didn't use credits to buy their books, they went in, and bought 10 books after perusing for an hour or so.

It's such a good concept, I'd like to try it some day in an area where there is enough of a population within an hour that it makes sense.