02-11-2013, 02:20 PM | #61 | |
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(This was Canada, right? I though Canadian police had time to go after stuff like that, seeing as how they have nothing else to do.... kidding.) |
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02-11-2013, 02:22 PM | #62 |
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02-11-2013, 02:25 PM | #63 |
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I have a new grandson, so I have been buying baby stuff. One item in particular was $44 at Walmart, $55 at Target and $60 at Babies R Us. The exact same item, same packaging, everything. Do I feel at all guilty for buying it at Walmart? Nope!
When it came to sheets, the Walmart sheets were cheaper, but I didn't like the way they felt, so I bought Target. Babies R Us felt the same but were more expensive. Do I feel guilty for not buying Walmart or Babies R Us? Nope. As a matter of fact the best sheets I bought were at the used store. Should I have to pay to go feel the fabric of those sheets? Or see which place has the cheapest price? Or feel guilty because I bought most of my sheets at the used store and none of those 3 stores got my money? I don't think so. S |
02-11-2013, 02:30 PM | #64 | |
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If BN had had the book in the store, I'd have happily bought it there. I'm not going to feel guilty over buying elsewhere. They get my business often enough for ebooks. |
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02-11-2013, 02:34 PM | #65 |
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I can say that if a book store is going to charge me to browse they will not get me in the door in the first place. I'd rather pay a higher price on the end purchase than a price for the right to shop.
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02-11-2013, 02:37 PM | #66 | |
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"Showrooming", as it's called, has become a major problem for many types of B&M stores; electronics, clothing, shoes ... etc .. not just books. They have to do something different to survive, so maybe charging to browse isn't such a bad idea, because what they are doing now isn't working and they are rapidly dying out to online competitors. |
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02-11-2013, 03:00 PM | #67 | |
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02-11-2013, 03:31 PM | #68 |
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Depends on the fee, for relatively low one, one might go in and pick something up as the already paid part of it and there is no point losing money, so you would have sale for the fee or bit more just then.
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02-11-2013, 03:37 PM | #69 | |
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Having your bookstore open to the public is your choice if you're running a bookstore; no one is morally obligated to buy from you just because you've decided to structure your business in a way that invites browsing without buying. Last edited by Ninjalawyer; 02-11-2013 at 03:39 PM. |
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02-11-2013, 03:40 PM | #70 | |
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Apache |
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02-11-2013, 03:42 PM | #71 | ||
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Barnes & Noble, 2011: - $7 billion in revenues - 30,000 employees - $233,000 in revenues per employee Amazon, 2011: - $48 billion in revenues - 88,000 employees - $545,000 in revenues per employee Quote:
Amazon doesn't need to pay leases or mortgages; they don't have a small army of sales clerks; they don't have to pay liability or fire or flood insurance on 650 stores; they only have to stock a handful of warehouses, rather than warehouses and 650 stores. They also don't have to worry about digital cannibalizing their existing sales infrastructure. And of course, indie stores don't have all the advantages of B&N or Amazon. |
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02-11-2013, 03:45 PM | #72 | |
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Some businesses hated this, even before the Internet, so there is nothing new there either. On the other hand, a lot of businesses learned how to deal with it. Offering after market services and support is a prime example of this. B&M can virtually always do this better than mail order (including online). Building relationships with customers is another way. That is especially true with smaller businesses. (It's hard to do with the big businesses who are complaining about showrooming because their staff tend to be unknowledgable, indifferent, and there is a high turnover rate.) Now I'm not going to say that I agree with showrooming or that I participate in it. Yet I am not going to claim that it is immoral because there is actually nothing wrong with it. If a business can't convince a customer that they should buy the product in their store because it is cheaper online, then they did a poor job in communicating the benefits of buying from them. |
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02-11-2013, 03:54 PM | #73 | |
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The reality is, the stores NEED people to come in so that the store has a chance to sell them something. Enticing people to come in is the number one critical first step for the survival of a brick and mortor retail store. That's why the have sales, giveaways, in-store events, and fancy window displays. People want a good value and they LEAVE the store without buying because they can get better value elsewhere. They will not pay MORE and reduce their value further. They will simply forgo the browsing, rely on the online merchant's return polices, and hasten the store's trip to bankruptcy. Unless handled with some new value-added model, the stores will be throwing the baby out with the bath water, killing their number-one get'em-in-the-door feature: browsing the showroom. ApK Last edited by ApK; 02-11-2013 at 04:04 PM. |
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02-11-2013, 04:10 PM | #74 |
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I could see a bookstore managing to pull off a "cover charge"/minimum purchase requirement--if it offered something other than books. A coffee shop, perhaps, with the ability to browse, buy, read and discuss books in the store. Regular book club meetups. Author signings where the author gets a cut of the cover charge. And so on.
It'd take a drastic reconsideration of the whole business model, though; "place people pay to enter" is very different from "place people go to buy things." Even if the entry fee is small, it serves to keep out casual browsers. $2 per person? $1? Is the entry fee one-time-only or does it last for the day--can you browse, go next door to have lunch, and return? If you buy something, do you get a coupon for free entry next time? How about children? Are they free or do they wait outside while parents shop? I can imagine a successful business based on it, but it'd be more a "book club" than a "book store." |
02-11-2013, 04:26 PM | #75 | |
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I could see benefit from, say, sponsoring book clubs in the store - a local B&N does that - or signings by authors - Mysterious Galaxy does a lot of that, or other events, to build a sense of community. But a cover charge? No, that will actively drive customers away, not draw them in. Especially in a business where there is generally little interaction between customers and employees outside the cash register. Having people browse, but buy elsewhere, doesn't really cost the store anything, unlike an electronics store where the browsers are tying up an employee asking questions. So a cover charge for browsers is simply abusive. No one will come in to the store because of it, and many will decline to because of it. |
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