GREENSBORO, NC -- After reading rave reviews of Jon Duckett's Javascript and Jquery: Interactive Front End Web Development, I thought I'd buy a copy. I checked Barnes and Noble's website to see if it was in stock at the Friendly Center store. It was. The price shown was $22.07.
I located the book in the store, but its cover price was $39.98, so I went to the customer service counter to ask about the discrepancy. Before I could even finish my question, the nice lady was nodding knowingly. As she explained, books at Barnes and Nobles are more expensive if purchased in the store.
I must have had quite an expression on my face because the lady responded with, "I know, I know."
"That's really dumb," I said, "now I'm going to leave the store, without making a purchase and go buy it online, probably from Amazon just to further express my displeasure with such gouging." (Alibris looks like a good option.)
"But you can have it today if you buy it in the store," the lady tried to convince me.
Nice try, but an 82% premium for instant gratification just wasn't a selling point.
"And, the money will stay in your community and you'll be supporting your local store," she said.
Yeah, but my local store is trying to stick it to me, that hardly engenders the kind of goodwill that makes me want to support that store.
I buy local plenty, I shop the farmers markets when I can and I prefer independently-owned restaurants and stores to chains; but they aren't gouging their customers. Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, is trying to make a business out of sticking it to local shoppers.
I feel sorry for the people working at the store, but geez o'man, somebody in the chain of command needs to get a clue.
This might (emphasize "might") not be as stupid as you think. Obviously the B&N store lost your purchase, but it may well retain others from people who don't look things up online. You'd think that readers of books would be the kind of people who'd research prices, but maybe they're not. Or maybe enough of them aren't.
ReplyDeleteIf that's the case, then this sounds like simple market segmentation, in which a business sells to two different kinds of customers, those who have options (because they look for them) and those who don't. Think airlines selling seats to both business travelers (fewer options, shorter planning horizons) and vacationers. The textbook advice is to charge higher prices to the segment with fewer options.
Be that as it may, it's still off-putting. And, to be blunt, you'd think that the number of people not doing online research will fall steadily as they die off. So this isn't a great long-run strategy, even if it's effective in the short run.
Perhaps, but my experience was not one of researching the price, it began with seeing if I could get it at the store. I'd have preferred to get it immediately and, yes, to support the local bricks and mortar store, if I could. I wasn't shopping price but, in looking to see if I could get it at the store, I was alerted that it could be had for $22. It wasn't until I got to the store that I learned that price was available only if I put the book in my hand back on the shelf and ordered it online. The sales lady even offered to order it for me, telling me she could get me the online price if, instead of swiping my credit card and putting the book I had in my hand in a bag, she could go the the company's website, order it for me, and have it shipped to my home.
ReplyDeleteSo, whatever some MBA may have thought about how this scheme was supposed to work (and, in the case of the Friendly Center store, I doubt the nearby demographic is of people who don't have options), it didn't work very well for me.
It's not necessarily about not having options, but not looking for them. If book buyers skew older, it's possible that they're more likely than you (and me, for that matter) to prefer a bricks-and-mortar experience to an online one. Perhaps they don't look online at all. Perhaps they're willing to pay more to get the book from the store. I don't know. My only point is that it's possible that what's a bad approach to selling books to Roch Smith, Jr., might be more effective when selling to people who aren't Roch Smith, Jr.
ReplyDeleteOf course, for a business the proof is in the pudding. If this pricing practice is as moronic as you claim, either B&N will abandon it or B&N will go out of business. They're dealing with enough factors already that are pointing them in the latter direction.
Isn't mine the only perspective that matters?
ReplyDeleteB&N, while losing money for the past three years is actually cash flow positive for the past two quarters so, who knows?