Originally Posted By Oldschool Disney The bookstore not Southern Arizona and such. Sadly many of the Borders stores are closing. I was shopping at one yesterday and of course they were having an everything must go sale but the discount was 20% for books and 40% for magazines. That seems awfully low I was thinking the minimum would have been 40%. Does anyone why it would have been such a low discount? I didn't buy as much as I would have liked to because of that.
Originally Posted By Labuda I suspect it may have to do with how soon they're closing - when they still have a lot of stock, minor discount, then as D-day gets closer, deeper discounts, maybe?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 That's the usual pattern. Decent discounts at first, deeper discounts as the shutdown approaches. It usually pays to wait, although you run the risk of something specific you wanted not being there any more.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Does anyone why it would have been such a low discount?<< How long were the lines? There's your answer. Because people are dumb, and for some reason they get twice as dumb when you put up a yellow and black sign that says "going out of business." You are correct about the discount being lousy. In most cases, you'll still do better ordering from Amazon.
Originally Posted By mawnck By the way, if my past experience with Borders closing sales is any indicator, you will NEVER get good deals on hot titles. When the price starts inching toward wholesale level, the best stuff will start mysteriously disappearing without actually being purchased by anybody. They're not going to sell you something for 70% off when they can ship it to a store that's staying open and sell it for full price. Going out of business sales are nearly always a massive ripoff, since they are run under the assumption that if they rip you off, you have absolutely no recourse. All sales are final, and they're closed anyway. Often the sales are operated by independent companies with no connection to the chain, thus insuring the lack of culpability should some nasty class action lawsuit crop up. See also: people who bought smashed-in big-screen TVs from the Circuit City GOBSs.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox When our Borders across from Giants ballpark closed last October, the discounts at first weren't that great, as mawnck pointed out. But as the weeks went by, the discounts did increase a bit. If it's a four-week sale before closing the store, try the second and third week. The first week wasn't much of a bargain, but the second week was better, and the third week even more so. Problem is, many items worth purchasing were gone by the third week.
Originally Posted By alexbook >>That's the usual pattern. Decent discounts at first, deeper discounts as the shutdown approaches. It usually pays to wait, although you run the risk of something specific you wanted not being there any more.<< Makes sense. If you wait for the "Everything Must Go!" signs, you can get things for deep, deep discounts, but what's left is mostly the trash that's already been picked over. A friend of mind recently posted on FB about a going-out-of-business sale where even the store's safe was on sale. ----- I thought this might be of interest to some people. The blogger is a former boss of mine, and is currently the manager of a small bookstore in Alameda, CA: <a href="http://drinkswithnick.blogspot.com/2011/02/bookstores-without-borders.html" target="_blank">http://drinkswithnick.blogspot...ers.html</a> This blogger has taken the list of Borders superstores that are closing and listed nearby independent bookstores that might serve as alternatives. Unfortunately, the list isn't totally accurate, but it's still interesting: <a href="http://www.edrants.com/list-of-independent-alternatives-to-closed-borders-bookstores/" target="_blank">http://www.edrants.com/list-of...kstores/</a>
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Where I found my best bargains with our Borders GOBS, was with the how-to books and DVDs, like cookbooks and exercise videos, especially the ones bundled with equipment. Those items are typically large and bulky, often heavy, and the store doesn't want to pay to ship them elsewhere. So if you're in the market for yoga mats or blocks, or classic Julia Child cooking tomes, this the time to purchase them.
Originally Posted By Oldschool Disney I do plan on going back. I'm mostly on a digital reader now, but I do like to read and collect graphic novels. As for the store itself, when I was at checking out there was one other person behind me but the parking lot was full so I had to park at the mall across the street. Well not exactly across the street, thinking of it like a race track where the mall was on the infield, then the road, the on the outside the other businesses.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>So if you're in the market for yoga mats or blocks, or classic Julia Child cooking tomes, this the time to purchase them.<< This is probably true. If you're in the market for non-mainstream stuff, then these sales may be worth the hassle. Truth be told, I'm planning on hitting a GOBS Borders at lunch today, specifically looking for CD Cards. These are hit compilation CDs in birthday cards arranged by year (1929 to 1991 IIRC) which each contain 20 hits from that year. The interesting thing about them is that they were compiled in England, so they contain a lot of funky stuff that you don't generally find on this side of the pond. (The Captain of Your Ship by Reparata and the Delrons. Woot!) And the best part is that Borders considers them cards, not CDs. So they should be 40% off instead of 20%. Not all Borders carry them, but I believe this one does (or did). And 40% off beats Amazon. (20% doesn't.) So if you know what you're looking for, there are indeed bargains to be had. If not, tread carefully. Some shopping music: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni2nUOpqGCc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...nUOpqGCc</a>
Originally Posted By Labuda OMG, Mawnck - if you spot one that's for 1973, can you tell me how much it costs? I'd love to hear hit songs from England from the year I was born.
Originally Posted By mawnck Sadly, my memory was wrong, or they had already been hauled off to greener pastures. This particular Borders (The Block at Orange) didn't have them. But I already bought the '73 edition in the last round of Borders closings, so I'll shoot you an email with the track lineup tonight. Keep in mind it won't be an exhaustive or even representative list. These discs only contain tracks owned by Sony/BMG (in the UK) ... which is a vast catalog, but by no means everything. Borders' regular price on these suckers, excluding tax, is $12.99, and they would've been 40% off.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>So if you're in the market for yoga mats or blocks, or classic Julia Child cooking tomes, this the time to purchase them.<< So true. I went to my local Borders today looking for blu-ray discounts. I found they were all 20% off of full-retail price. Way more than I'd pay on Amazon. There was, however, a lovely umbrella with Marilyn Monroe stamped on it for 75% off.
Originally Posted By Oldschool Disney I remember a few years back they would sell these lightsabers that cost 100 how I wish those were still in stock.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>They're like little silver LPs, except with inferior sound.<< My grandpa used to say that and I thought it was an old person being absurd. Turns out, he might've been onto something. At the very least, the supposed superiority of digital sound is questionable. A fun, albeit a bit technical for my tastes, article. <a href="http://www.audioholics.com/education/audio-formats-technology/dynamic-comparison-of-lps-vs-cds-part-4" target="_blank">http://www.audioholics.com/edu...s-part-4</a>
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy If the bookselling business still operates on the same model it did a few years ago, stores like Borders can send unsold books back to the publisher and get their investment in inventory back. There really isn't any incentive for a bookseller to slash prices below what they know will be returned by the publisher. Unless things dramatically changed in the past 2 or 3 years, this is how the book business has always operated.
