ABOUT US
WHAT IS THE USED BOOK SUPERSTORE?
The Used Book Superstore is a discount store established in 2008 that mainly sells (you guessed it) used books. But we are so much more than a used bookstore! Used books and new, DVDs, comic books, records, CDs, and video games; our selection is endless! There’s something new to find every time you visit!
Established in the garage of Bob Ticehurst’s mother in August of 2008, the Used Book Superstore has flourished. There have been a number of stores around central Massachusetts including in Danvers and Middleton, plus two stores up north in Salem and Nashua, New Hampshire. The owner, Bob Ticehurst, recently made the decision to focus his attention on the one remaining store in Burlington, MA. Don’t let this fool you; there are zero plans to close the Burlington location. On the contrary, more and more has been put into the Burlington store to make it better than ever before! If you happen across owner Bob, please don’t compliment his shirt. He doesn’t need the ego boost.
What makes us unique?
Our store is huge — over 13,000 square feet!
Most used bookstores are small; hole-in-the-wall spots that may have a certain charm, but are seriously lacking in variety. We have tons of space, and we put it to good use!
Nothing sits on our shelves for more than 6 months.
We use colored stickers to price our books and keep track of how long a book has been available for purchase. We use the same color for four to five weeks so we know those books have been added to the shelves most recently.
The three colors that mark the books that have been in the store the longest get discounted. Over four to five weeks, those discounts increase. Once the oldest books have been in the store for 6 months, we either move those books to our clearance section or donate the remaining books to Kenya (we work with a charity called Faith Kenya Mission). Then the cycle starts over.
For example: if we are using orange price stickers to label books, that means brown, purple, and pink stickers are discounted, with brown having the highest discount. Once the books with brown stickers have been out on the shelves for 6 months, we donate the remaining books to Kenya, and the colors shift. We start using brown price stickers, and purple, pink, and green price stickers are discounted.
We add to our shelves every single day.
We are constantly adding to our shelves. Every day we process, sort, and shelve more than 1,000 books so they’re available for purchase. In the image, you can see our sorting area, designed to sort books quickly and efficiently. We also add DVDs, Blu-rays, and box sets of TV series every day, and CDs at least once a week (but usually more!). We put out a new batch of records every single week, and a new batch of comic books every three to four weeks. Our stock is always changing!
