Agreed about the regular local (in my case Czech Republic) used book shops - they are kinda like antiquities and totally different atmosphere. They also seems to buy & sell old and somehow interesting books - if you just want to sell a recently released novel or some text books good luck. As far as I can tell Book Off does not make such a distinctions.
Anyway, as a result there is really not a good place where to sell newer less interesting books to other people - there are some online Ebay like sites & I've heard people buy & sell used books over Facebook. Still far cry from basically going to a nearest Book Off with bags of books to sell (at least that's how I imagine it to work when you sell books to them ;-) ).
Maybe that could be something that would make it work here as well. It really seems like there is a complete "circle" for books in Japan but not here & Book Off seems to be a big part of that.
Anyway, as a result there is really not a good place where to sell newer less interesting books to other people - there are some online Ebay like sites & I've heard people buy & sell used books over Facebook. Still far cry from basically going to a nearest Book Off with bags of books to sell (at least that's how I imagine it to work when you sell books to them ;-) ).
Maybe that could be something that would make it work here as well. It really seems like there is a complete "circle" for books in Japan but not here & Book Off seems to be a big part of that.