Ziffit or We Buy Books: Which Is Better?

Probably my favourite items to declutter and sell are books.  

First of all it’s relatively easy to let go of books, once I’ve accepted that I’m never going to be a yoga teacher, dog owner, literary translator, master of JavaScript, or whatever other aspiration led me to get that book. I guess that’s why Marie Kondo says it’s the first category of item you should try to tidy up.

Even if there’s still a glimmer of hope for that parallel life, I can live with making that book available for someone who will actually use it, and plan to get a newer version of the book if I ever need it in the future.  

Secondly, it’s so easy to sell books in bulk, meaning that you don’t have to make and monitor individual listings – or even leave the house to post them.

I use two apps for this: Ziffit (referral link) and We Buy Books. With both apps you can scan the book and get a guaranteed price for it, then package them off to receive the money a few days later. 

Why two? Because sometimes one of the apps doesn’t want to buy your precious book, while the other one is happy to.  Usually I’ll try Ziffit and then about 20% of the remaining books will be accepted by We Buy Books.

Both Ziffit and We Buy Books are offering a £5 bonus if you sign up using referral links, with the same bonus for me.  For We Buy Books, you need to send an invite out to a specific email address, so if you email me at annie@homeinthegreen or message me on Instagram I can send you an invitation.

How Ziffit works

With Ziffit you scan the books, get a price for each and then once you have scanned either 10 books or £5 worth of books you can complete a trade.

You need to package the books carefully in your own box (any robust cardboard box will do) and then Ziffit will let you know what postage method they are using.  For example, they may ask you to print a label and take the box to a local drop off point (such as a local Collect + point) or they will arrange a courier to pick up the box within a few days.  In this case you don’t need a printer, you can just write the trade ID on the box.

This is a bit of a gamble if you don’t have a printer or can’t take the box to a drop off point, but if they suggest a postage method that doesn’t suit you you don’t need to go through with the trade.

In my case, they used to sometimes suggest a local drop off point, but recently they always pick the box up at my house, perhaps because I now declutter larger volumes of books (I’m better at coming to terms with the fact that I’m not going to be picking up old hobbies again!).

The books are then checked by Ziffit to make sure they are all in good condition, then you will be paid the agreed amount into your Paypal account.

Advantages of Ziffit

What I like about Ziffit is that they usually pick the books up at my house and also regularly, about once a month, have a boosting deal where you get an extra 10% on any trades.

Most books are at least recognised, even if Ziffit won’t agree to buy them.

Ziffit is linked to the online secondhand book retailed World of Books, so many of the books end up being sold there, and ones that can’t be are recycled.

Disadvantages of Ziffit

As I said before, it’s a bit of a gamble not knowing what postage method Ziffit are going to assign to your package, and you can’t choose. However, the fact that they always pick up at home now, as long as I sell quite a few books (more than 10) works for me.

The app can be a bit buggy although the help desk are responsive. If you can’t complete a trade on the app, for any reason, you can save it and complete it on their website.  The site is also a bit difficult to navigate – for example it’s hard to find out how to login to your account, without using this URL: https://www.ziffit.com/en-gb/myaccount

If you have already scanned a book and then abandon the process and later rescan the book, Ziffit will often no longer offer you a price for the book as it registers that it already has it in stock so be careful to follow through if you plan to sell something.

How We Buy Books works

We Buy Books has a similar model to Ziffit, with a few differences:

• You can have the option of getting books picked up, but then you have to print a label.  If you don’t have a printer, you can opt to drop off your prints at an Evri store with print in store facilities.
• Rather than offering short term boosting offers, you can always get 5% extra if you sell more than £25 worth of books, so it may be a better option for larger sales. There is also a 10% uplift for your first sale, but if you are using a referral code with a £5 bonus you are usually better off using that.
• With We Buy Books you can choose to be paid by Paypal, bank transfer or cheque whereas Ziffit only offers Paypal or bank transfer

WHO PAYS MORE, ZIFFIT OR WE BUY BOOKS?

We Buy Books claims to pay the highest rate for books of any online retailer.

I did a test with 10 books to see which app accepted more books and gave me the highest price, without factoring in any additional offers. The books were mostly non-fiction and relatively new, which I knew would probably get me higher prices than usual.

Ziffit accepted all 10 books and gave me a price of £17.67

On the other hand, We Buy Books accepted only 9 out of 10 books and offered me £12.44. You can see from the screenshots alone that the prices offered per book were significantly lower.

Although I only did the comparison on a small number of books, based on that I’d definitely take We Buy Book’s claim with a pinch of salt and compare them yourself.  

However, just because We Buy Books didn’t accept all books this time, doesn’t mean that Ziffit has a better acceptance rate as in my experience they sometimes accept books that Ziffit will not.

Conclusion

It’s worth signing up to both apps to maximise the chance of getting a price for your books and to collect the referral bonuses, and then favouring whichever app has the better boosting offers.  

Although the price you are offered might seem very low compared to what you bought the book for, you do something randomly get a great price for a book you don’t value anymore, and it also does add up.  

Over the last year we have decluttered about 50% of our books (a tall bookcase worth) and made over £150 from it, excluding the sign up bonuses.  If you live with someone else, you can also refer them, so it’s worth splitting up the books into different trades.

I’m sure you can see now why books are some of my favourite items to declutter, until I started running out of books!