Step off the Berri-UQAM metro in downtown Montreal and a short walk along rue Sainte-Catherine Est brings shoppers to Librairie Volume, a used media shop that has been trading in books, comics, CDs, DVDs, and console games since 2004. Operating under the corporate name Volume Boutique Inc, the store sits close to Universite du Quebec a Montreal and the Place des Arts cultural district, putting it within easy reach of students, downtown workers, and anyone passing through one of the city’s busiest cultural corridors. The shop’s core business is straightforward: buy, sell, and trade, with a stream of secondhand stock flowing in from customers who bring items across the counter every day of the week.
Inventory spans literature and bandes dessinees alongside music on CD, movies on DVD, and games for both Xbox and PlayStation consoles, giving the shop a broader catalog than a typical used bookstore. Because the physical location on Sainte-Catherine cannot hold everything the business sources, Librairie Volume also runs an Amazon storefront to move overflow stock, meaning its reach extends well past whoever happens to walk through the door on a given afternoon. That combination, a compact but well-trafficked downtown shop paired with an online sales channel, lets the business keep turning over inventory quickly rather than letting shelves get stale.
The store keeps generous, consistent hours, open every day of the week from 11 in the morning until 7 at night, which makes it an easy stop for evening browsing after class or work. Anyone looking to sell rather than buy can bring items in for evaluation daily between noon and 6 p.m., when staff assess condition and offer either cash or in-store credit. That credit carries a real incentive: customers who choose an in-store exchange over a cash payout receive a 40 percent bonus on the value of their trade, a policy that rewards regulars who keep cycling their old titles back into new ones rather than cashing out and leaving. It is the kind of structural detail that separates a shop built around repeat customers from one focused purely on one-off transactions.
Payment is accepted through Interac, Visa, and Mastercard, and customers can reach the shop directly by phone or by email for questions about specific titles, trade-in values, or stock availability. The business also maintains a Facebook page under the Librairie Volume name for updates and community engagement. Two decades of continuous operation in the same downtown corridor has let the shop build a stock that leans toward variety and depth rather than a narrow specialty, an approach the business itself frames as having one of the more appealing selections on the used-media market in the city.
For book lovers, comic collectors, and gamers alike, Librairie Volume offers a rare one-stop trade-in counter in central Montreal, letting a customer walk in with old paperbacks, a stack of CDs, or a used console game and walk out with either cash or a boosted store credit toward something new to them. Open seven days a week just steps from Berri-UQAM, it stands as a fixture of the downtown Montreal secondhand media scene, buying and selling books, comics, music, movies, and games under one roof since 2004.
