Condition Grading is an optional service we offer to sellers of used books. What this means is that we fully inspect and open up each book, look for highlighting, writing, spine damage, dust cover damage, obscured text, missing pages, telltale signs of counterfeit, instructors/international editions, etc so that we can accurately assign one of the five condition ratings to the book (Like New, Very Good, Good, Acceptable or Unacceptable)
This takes time and training to do correctly so we charge an extra $1.00 per unit over our normal rate of $1.95 for this service.
Of course, the benefit is that if you buy a “good” condition book and the book that arrives is actually “very good” or “like new” then you can create a seller central listing for the book in the higher condition, and likely sell the book for more money than if you just sold it as “good”
The flip side is that if you buy a “good” condition book and it arrives in “acceptable” condition, you can decide to request a refund from your vendor/source who sold it to you, or decide to sell it as acceptable if it still meets your profit criteria, for example.
Many books will arrive in the same condition you purchased them (ie: you buy a “good” condition book and that is what arrives) but without us doing the time to fully inspect the inside and out of the book and grade it you won’t know for sure.
We do have some used book sellers as clients who don’t opt for condition grading, but just assign a low condition to all their books, which is one option obviously, but most of our book sellers find that our condition grading service makes them more money and helps protect their accounts from the risk of buyer complaints.
Current clients – ready to enable condition grading for your books? Send us an email at service@flatrateprep.com and we’ll get you set up.