Remainder books are new but may have marks
We mainly sell remaindered books. Often when a new title is going to be released, the publishers can only guess at how many of that title they are going to sell. A lot of the time their guess is wrong and print too many.
They send the books out to regular bookstores and department stores and they sit on the shelf waiting to be purchased. Eventually the popularity of that title will wane and those books will just be taking up valuable room. The retailer would obviously prefers to fill the shelf space with newer titles that they hope will sell better.
After a certain amount of time the bookseller is able to pack up the remaining copies and send them back to the publishers for a refund. The publishers suddenly find themselves with a lot of books that the regular booksellers no longer want to stock, and they are left with two options - either destroy the books or resell them at a discounted price. In most cases the publishers would rather resell them to bookstores like us! When this happens the books are classified as ‘remaindered’.
Remaindered books are usually marked with a black pen along the base of the book to indicate their current status. They also exhibit a certain level of wear and tear caused by the extra travel and handling but are essentially brand new.
As a remainder bookstore we can pass on the savings to our customers who benefit with up to 90% off the recommended retail price.