Secondhand books, bought and sold directly
Give every book a new home
Books near you
Collect in person. No postage, no packaging.
Only you can see your postcode. We just use it to find books near you, and never show it to anyone else.
Why Retale
For buyers
Pay less for your next read
Secondhand books cost a fraction of new, without the wait.
Protected until it arrives
The seller isn't paid until your book's arrived as described. If something's wrong, we step in.
Collect locally, save on postage
Where a seller offers pickup, meet nearby and skip the courier entirely.
For sellers
Keep 100% of your price
No selling fees: the price you set is what you're paid. Buyers cover postage and a small fee.
Give your books a second life
Instead of gathering dust, pass them on to someone who'll actually read them.
List in minutes
Scan the barcode, set a price, done — no cataloguing required.
Every book you don't buy new
Some real numbers on why passing a book on matters, not just a nice idea.
1 tree
makes roughly 25 books
Every secondhand copy is one that didn't need to be printed from scratch.
Impakter, publishing industry environmental impact reporting
2.7kg
of CO2 per printed book
A conservative, peer-reviewed estimate of one paperback's carbon footprint — avoided entirely when a book gets a second reader instead of a new print run.
Peer-reviewed paperback supply-chain carbon assessment
75%
of a major UK publisher's footprint is paper and printing
Penguin Random House UK's own reporting — paper and print dominate a book's environmental cost long before it reaches a shelf.
Penguin Random House UK sustainability reporting