Half Price Books Reviews

Pros

Great Management, co-workers and amazing benefits and time off and vacation. A very fun and interesting customers, co-workers and environment.

Cons

As always in retail the pay is low but it''s made up for in benefits.

Pros

Benifits and profit sharing are amazing! Work is easy. If you do your job you are left alone. 1 hr PAID lunch. 1000 dollar loans.

Cons

If you do your job too well you are given more responsibility with minimal compensation. Can be monotonous and dirty. Your experience depends on what type of manager you have.

Advice to Senior Management

Talk to the old schoolers about how great it was before it became too corporate.

Pros

Easily the people in my store is the brightest and best group of people I've ever worked with. Merchandise discounts and benefits are decent, bonus used to be excellent.

Cons

Bonus checks have been dwindling while workload increasing. Expect micromanagement, unfair criticism and never praise if you work at my store, the turnover rate for my store is staggering large for a "hippie" company, over 25 people have quit or were fired in less than four years, NOT counting temp workers. Worst management I've worked under. Management was always unclear as to how not to tell customer that their crap was garbage, why their offers were low or why we needed their identification to process buys. Extreme fear of offending customers comes at the cost of undermining employees morale. Don't let its hippie roots fool you, this is a very corporate company, complete with multiple job reviews per year and harsh punishment. Everything you do will be put under a microscope, you will be surprised what comes up under these reviews.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop micromanaging and be fair. Stop doing things that you tell your employees not to do, like leaving books laying around when you go to lunch then yell at other employees when they do the same. Give vacation time when needed not when you feel like it; this will avoid burn out on their part. If you criticize them heavily for three mistakes they made during the year, how about you praise them for the one hundred times they went beyond the call of duty? Like when they helped a customer after they were off duty.

Pros

13 days paid vacation first year, one additional day for each year worked afterward, up to 10 additional days.

Full medical coverage for $10 a paycheck

Quarterly bonuses up to $1000 each, plus Christmas bonus.

Cons

Many employees stay for 10 plus years, leaving very little room for advancement within the company.

People with allergies have a very hard time with the purchasing.

Pros

Above all else I enjoyed the atmosphere of the store. The smell of old books and dust.

Cons

I was displeased with many interactions I had with other employees and especially customers who did not want to accept their buy quotes. However what really made the job unbearable was having to stand for so long. I have a bad back and the end of each day was excrutiating to the point that I could not take care of home life.

Advice to Senior Management

I am too polite to fill in this particular section. Sorry

Pros

Great health and paid vacation/sick time benefits. As a rule, there are a great bunch of eclectic guys and girls to work with...and because you spend more time with them than you do with your family, it helps if you all get on as well as is possible.

Cons

No real regular days off.

Advice to Senior Management

The digital age is coming...in fact it has already arrived. HPB's need to take this on-board and incorporate this changing trend into their business strategy if they are not going to go the way of Border's and B&N. Considering the level of education/life experience that the majority of employees have, the remuneration for the job is not all it could be, I guess. Most employees start on a minimum of $8.00 per hour. And on that salary, your life style is going to be pretty much a paycheck to paycheck existence.

Pros

Smart co-workers, benefits, full time hours, paid lunch hour

Cons

It seems the company has no plan to combat the iPad, kindle, nook, etc. - and by the end of the summer 2010 google editions bookstore and tablet.

Advice to Senior Management

Give each store a website to connect with the community online. Allow the booksellers to contribute to a blog about the neat, rare, and exciting items we receive in the store each day. Bookstores as we know them are not going to exist past the end of 2011 with the rate of production and consumption of e-books and e-readers. 3 million ipads sold in 80 days should make all bookstore managers take notice and change the way they do business. HPB has the opportunity to provide a shopping experience unlike other bookstores, and we need to promote our unique inventory both in the store and online if we want to stay in business. I'm afraid the public will continue to sell us books at a higher and faster pace, but will stop buying physical books and only buy digital ones.

Pros

I've been with HPB almost two years. it's a great company to work for just to pass the time, or if you want to climb the ladder. If you make it known that you're interested in advancement, they'll help you along. Great benefits, FREE health, dental, vision!! Free Employee assistance (i.e psychological help) and you also get a quarterly profit based bonus (usually anywhere from 300-600 extra dollars). We're one of the few companies that actually profited during the recession, and even added more stores during this time.

Cons

Work load can be a little over bearing at times. You have to handle people's dirty stinky books. They smell like cat pee and cigarettes most of the time. Sometimes we even find dead animals and live bugs in boxes. We just make them take the back home in that case though.

Advice to Senior Management

I think that higher management should take into consideration that there are so many people selling books now because they need money, and they expect more for crappy items. We have no many books coming in, but not enough people to get them out to the floor a lot of the time. Other than that, I think you are all doing a fantastic job.

Pros

Great discount
Amazing benefits (2 weeks sick, 2 weeks vacation, 2 weeks of holidays)
Bonuses quarterly ( CEO gets same amount as a bookseller)
1st choice of books
Hour paid lunch

Cons

The shifts, one day you will open (8am), the next a mid (11) next close (3:30). The rarely give you two days off in a row and your schedule changes weekly so there is barely any time for a normal life. The sick policy is harsh, you are not supposed to call in a day before or a day after a scheduled day off.

Advice to Senior Management

A regular schedule would be nice.

Pros

great benefits, bonuses were great, do your work and you are rewarded, havent found a job with as good of benefits.

Cons

not a high paying job, raises are not very high, takes time to move up in the company, not bad since people actually stay there.

Advice to Senior Management

keep encouraging the staff, like any other retail store, people will be negative about working nights and weekends. no complainets.