Borders Australia continued on its path to self-destruction today by issuing a Christmas catalogue in which selected popular books are listed at about 10% more than RRP.
The justification as reported in the papers is that Borders stores are nicer with comfy chairs, and they need to recoup the cost. Alright, I can see the cost of the comfy chairs, but what's to stop an intelligent reader, which would be most of them, reading the books in the comfy chairs and then walking away to buy the book elsewhere for less? (Ahhh, free market, you are a beautiful thing). Or else since Borders has a price matching policy, take the book to the Borders checkout, and simply point to the RRP on the back.
This does little to help their finances and does a great deal to deliver bad PR. It already has. The papers are reporting the Borders' price gouge, which will send plenty of people to other stores rather than take the risk of accidentally buying a book with a toxic price. The people who will be most annoyed are the ones who find out later they paid extra. Bet they won't be going back.
The solution to the comfy chair costs...most Borders have a built-in coffee shop. Raise the cost of the coffee and cake. People will pay ridiculous amounts of money for caffeine without blinking, and the ones in the chairs are probably the ones who want the coffee.
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