Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Quick Rant

Okay, so I was just doing a bit of price comparison for one of the last Christmas gifts I have left to buy. I'm buying a book for someone, a Christian book, so I checked the local Christian bookstore, I checked a local Chapters store, and I checked Chapters online store.

The Christian bookstore was going to charge me $22.99.
Chapters was going to charge me $16.99 less 10%.
Chapters online is charging $12.26.

And I don't have to pay shipping, because I ordered a couple of other items I've been looking for, again, at reduced prices, and so the shipping is free. And the items should still easily be here in time for Christmas.

Why are Christian bookstores so much more costly? I think I'm going to do most of my bookshopping online from now on...
Posted by Lisa at 11:55 am

5 comments:

Faye said...

Yeah, since I'm going to a Christian university/college all my text-books are available at CP. I avoid buying them there at all costs. A text-book at CP that costs $120 will usually be available online for at least as low as $100, if not $80-$90. The only catch is that it requires time, a credit card, and shrewedness in discerning who is a trustworthy seller. I usually have none of those things so I either have to beg Nolan to do it for me or give in and buy overpriced books from CP at the last second.

9:12 pm, December 12, 2006
Anonymous said...

Most Christian bookstores cannot compete against the volume of sales that a Chapters/Indigo corporation can generate. So what basically happens is that:
A) Chapters is able to secure/demand a larger discount from the publisher because they can guarantee more sales.
B) Huge volume of sales gives the larger corporation an opportunity to give a more palatable discounted price point for the consumer because they own the largest market share in sales.

The only problem is that the large corporation ultimately squeezes out the little guys... like Home Depot on 16th Ave up at North Hill making life very difficult for Hillhurst Hardware. Yah, you can find a drill for 10-30% less but ultimately Home Depot with it's corporate office in Atlanta GA will shut down the locally owned store and your money leaves town/country.

There's my quick rant as I work in the book publishing industry and deal with Chapters/Indigo, Zellers, Superstore and local owners everyday.

Now I will say this... smaller bookstore owners (Christian in theme or not) need to take notice at what's going on in the marketplace and be creative in sales to not lose people like you, Lisa and/or Faye. Customer loyalty will only take you so far when prices are that appallingly different.

I challenge you to go into CP and tell them what the price was for the book online and ask them what they can do for you. If they won't do anything then you have your answer but if they are willing to meet you half way or equal the price I recommend supporting a neighbor from Calgary and not a Toronto/Montreal-based corporation.

Cheers, paulo

10:51 pm, December 12, 2006
Lisa said...

Paulo,
In this case I made the purchase online because when I called CP to ask about the price, and mentioned that I could purchase less expensively elsewhere, the gentleman I was speaking to was quite rude. (years of work in the retail and customer service industry has made me rather unwilling to patronize bad service.)

However, I am generally a booksellers best friend. Yes, I still work somewhat from the broke student mentality - looking for the lowest price, but I spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars every year on books, most of it at smaller local stores because I want the instant gratification of having it now, rather than having to wait for a week or two for my internet order to arrive. In the case of Chapters, I don't mind patronizing them too much, because at least they're Canadian. And, I tend to buy books, rather than borrow, because I have this need to make notes in them or underline in them, and so on and so forth!

Yesterday was just one in a series of ongoing frustrations with CP lately, as I've tried to find books that they say don't exist, or as I've found them continually out of stock (with a 4 week order time) of books that I need rather quickly. Thus, the rant! Money has been tight lately, and when I found I could purchase the book for nearly half the price online I did so.

8:40 am, December 13, 2006
Anonymous said...

Lisa, cool to read that you do value the local storeowner. I am not surprised at the response. The "Christian" retail people somehow feel that disloyalty to the adjective "Christian" in front of bookstore means you are less of one. I completely understand that it's tough competing against big box retail but somehow, someway the "Christian" retailer has to compete by taking less of a profit and up the customer service to keep you not lose you.

Sidenote: in the context of the world you are not poor/broke, you are wealthy or else you couldn't spend hundreds of dollars (or over $1000) in a hobby such as reading. Yah, in Calgary you are not as wealthy as some but you have an incredible opportunity to ride the hot economic wave.

I cannot overemphasize the need to shop local and support store owners who live down the street. You may have to spend more and consume less but in the long run you will be making a difference that one day may be the blessing that comes your way.

cheers, paulo

11:18 am, December 17, 2006
Lisa said...

Yeah... not broke, actually making okay money these days, and definitely grateful that I can spend the money to indulge reading. I guess what I was referring to was the mentality of being a student, living off loans and the little bit of income from working a low end retail job. I was a student for most of the last five years, and I've only not been a student for the last year, so I still slip into the mentality of buying the cheapest available items.

Our family has too many connections in the third world for me to ever actually consider myself "poor." Just this morning I heard from my best friend, who is currently working at a mission hospital in Pakistan, talking about the newborn baby she spent an entire day taking care of this week, only to have it die over night. There are too many stories like that connected with people I know and care about for me to ever think I'm truly one of the world's poor.

3:26 pm, December 17, 2006

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)