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How hard is it to buy used books in NZ?
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Jackson
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Aug 13, 2025 08:40PM

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Jackson wrote: "Hello, I am thinking about returning home, it has been a while since I have been back and have been exposed to the luxuries of eBay and thriftbooks.com. I’m curious to see if anyone could inform me..."
Hi Jackson & welcome,
I've moved your thread to Book Talk as Ask a Goodreads Librarian is where I help mainly authors with their book listings on Goodreads. :)
What Americans call thrift shops , we call op shops & they are a great place to pick up books cheaply. Also dumps have dump shops - they can be cheap for books as well. There are Little Free Libraries & their equivalent all over the place. Some accommodations have a book swap.
If you are wanting to bring back books to sell - I've stopped doing that (although I'm thinking of starting up again) because courier & NZ Post fees are so high.
What I found is that Kiwis are starting to value their history & older NZ non fiction can be much in demand. So if you seeing anything like that, you could snatch them up. The exception is books about or by famous NZ sportsmen. To get an idea of pricing look for NZ listings on Abe books or our equivalent to Ebay, TradeMe https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/?srsltid=...
If you are wanting to buy new books for yourself - NZ is expensive for books. If it is an American book, buy in the States.
Hope this helps! :)
Hi Jackson & welcome,
I've moved your thread to Book Talk as Ask a Goodreads Librarian is where I help mainly authors with their book listings on Goodreads. :)
What Americans call thrift shops , we call op shops & they are a great place to pick up books cheaply. Also dumps have dump shops - they can be cheap for books as well. There are Little Free Libraries & their equivalent all over the place. Some accommodations have a book swap.
If you are wanting to bring back books to sell - I've stopped doing that (although I'm thinking of starting up again) because courier & NZ Post fees are so high.
What I found is that Kiwis are starting to value their history & older NZ non fiction can be much in demand. So if you seeing anything like that, you could snatch them up. The exception is books about or by famous NZ sportsmen. To get an idea of pricing look for NZ listings on Abe books or our equivalent to Ebay, TradeMe https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/?srsltid=...
If you are wanting to buy new books for yourself - NZ is expensive for books. If it is an American book, buy in the States.
Hope this helps! :)