Borders Books Attempts To Appeal To Customers With New Shipping Promise

annarbor.com:

Ann Arbor-based Borders Group Inc. told customers in an e-mail today that it would commit to paying the shipping costs of books the chain has not stocked at its stores.

Read the whole story: annarbor.com

Comments

[Booklust]

10:58 PM on 05/20/2011

If you don't want your favorite store to go out of business, SHOP there. Borders is disappearing partly because people sat in our chairs, read our books, used our bathrooms and went home without spending a dime.

[violettefemme]

02:16 PM on 05/13/2011

Borders is nice for being in and seeing things, but when it's time to actually buy, I go to Amazon.

A Borders here in Downtown San Diego closed, and I started getting all kinds of emails about the amazing "blow out" prices and clearance....then I actually went there, and found that before they put everything on "clearance" they hiked the prices, WAY up to the sky!

Then they took off 10-40 percent and called it a going out of business sale. I left with a single package of tissue paper for 50 cents. Never went back. Hardly anyone did, it was pretty much empty to the day it shut its door permanently.

[born 2b different]

02:20 PM on 05/13/2011

Give me a specific example of this price hiking you speak of.

[suec03]

03:44 PM on 05/13/2011

I disagree.  I shopped the Mira Loma, CA Borders liquidation.  We get spoiled by frequent discounts on book prices, and you couldn't use the then-current 33% off Borders Rewards coupon at the liquidation sale.  During the liquidation, the discount was taken off the manufacturer's list price of the book, regardless of any previous discounts, except for certain books on the bargain table, such as Paul Krugman's "Conscience of a Liberal," which I got at 20% off the bargain table price.  If you went to the liquidation expecting the liquidation discount to be taken off the most recent discounted price of a book, you were disappointed.  I bought 5 or 6 books.  The store is a long drive from my home, so I only went once, early in the sale, so the books I bought were only 20% off.  I thought about returning when the discounts had risen to 40% off, but decided they wouldn't likely have anything I hadn't seen the first time.  It wasn't worth the price of a half tank of gas for the trip up and back to pick over the crumbs.  At least the first time, I made the trip in conjunction with other errands in Riverside, making it worth the gas.

[born 2b different]

04:04 PM on 05/13/2011

Thank you! I've been in the liquidation business for 15+ years and I always hear this crap that we raised the prices. As you explained, the prices all are set to the original price and then the progressive discounts start.