Used Book Seller ThriftBooks to Add 100 Jobs in Major Dallas Warehouse Expansion

ThriftBooks, one of the world’s largest online sellers of used books, plans to add at least 100 employees in a tripling of its Dallas fulfillment center. The expansion makes Dallas the company’s largest warehouse location with 178,000 square feet that can shelf as many as two million books at a time.The company is looking to increase its numbers to at least 175 Dallas employees, adding about 10 new employees a week over the next several months. Its warehouse positions pay $9 to $18 an hour, depending on experience and job responsibilities.Seattle-based ThriftBooks is an online seller of used books of all kinds, from fiction to self help books to textbooks. The company, which started in 2003, has expanded in recent years from the rise in e-commerce popularity and natural growth. Dallas, along with the other seven ThriftBook warehouse locations, have been ramping up production to keep up with increased demand for used books. The company also expanded its Atlanta and Baltimore locations. “As we begin to overflow some of our other facilities, we needed to focus on a few key facilities that can become mega centers,” Mike Ward, CEO of ThriftBooks said. “Dallas emerged as a clear winner.”The company buys books in bulk by the pound from places like Goodwill and Salvation Army. Semi trucks packed with pallet-sized boxes of books deliver to company warehouses for sorting. When it’s at scale, four or five semi truck loads of books a day could be delivered to the new Dallas facility. The workers, with the help of automation machinery, sort through books based on condition and sellability. Once sorted, the books are shipped to customers all over the world. “Not all used books are created equal,” Ward said. Lightly used new books, textbooks and technical books are among high demand items. The Dallas location processes more than 110,000 pounds of books each day. The company anticipates it could process 50 million books next year in the increased facility. "Imagine walking into a Costco and it's full of nothing but just used books," Ward said.  Continue reading...