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Half Price Books

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Half Price Books reviews

3.7

70% would recommend to a friend

(718 total reviews)
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Sharon Anderson Wright

64% approve of CEO

55% positive business outlook

Half Price Books has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 718 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Half Price Books employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

718 reviews
5.0
Jul 16, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You get to check out books (like a library) and get an impressive employee discount. There are also a lot of benefits (quarterly bonus based on profit,) but pay could be better. I really liked a lot of the people I worked with, but the assistant managers at my store were pretty terrible ranging from one that was terrible at communication to another who was a drugged ass-hat. Store manager was alright though, I liked her for the most part. You also get a lot of freedom with projects and time management, which I enjoyed.

Cons

Hard, dirty, hot work. And a lot of it. Also I was always scheduled to work the busiest times and practically never got a weekend (Friday/Saturday/Sunday) scheduled off. I also wish the company had a firmer policy on not abusing the coupons or accepting clearly bogus returns. But they, in an attempt to compensate for the stagnant market, really sell customer service.

4.0
Jul 16, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Affordable (but not totally free) health care benefits are a big draw, and the company is generous with paid time off and sick leave. Coworkers are 90% fantastic people and the employee discount (50%) will keep you happy.

Cons

Very little room for advancement, and management above the assistant manager level is uniformly bad. Like, Office Space bad. Fortunately, you can go days without needing to interact with them.

5.0
Jul 8, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits are incredible for an entry-level retail position, and it is nice to work for a company who doesn't seem hell-bent on being a creepy mega-corporation with no regard for its workers, like so many other companies these days. Also, they promote from within, which leads to much less managerial incompetence than I'm used to in retail.

Cons

Upper management operates under very little oversight, but this is typical of any big company these days. The biggest issue here is that books are a fast-dying medium, and this is in no way being addressed by the company (although, to be fair, what else would they be saying? "abandon ship"?). Some stores have begun to sell parts of their inventories online, and this has helped, but I can't imagine it will "stop the bleeding" for very long.

Viewing 676 - 678 of 718 Reviews

Glassdoor has 759 Half Price Books reviews submitted anonymously by Half Price Books employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Half Price Books is right for you.