Winning the Discount Game
When making a purchase at Borders bookstore, customers typically receive a coupon good for a limited period of time roughly a week ahead. This is an interesting practice, encouraging repeat purchases while discouraging multiple-item purchases. It plays on the American belief that it's not how much you spend, but how much you save. Sales and discounts can induce people to spend money in the belief that they're being frugal by saving 25%, not realizing they would save 100% if they didn't go to the store.
I'm quite aware that it would be fiscally irresponsible to buy a book every week just because I've got a four day window in which it would be 20% off. (Ignore for the fact that I have a few dozen books that I want to read which are already in my possession and don't really need to keep buying more.) However, I've been pretty pleased by resent results. To wit:
I bought O'Reilly's Ruby Cookbook last weekend, which had a 30% off sticker on the cover. I liked this for several reasons. First, Ruby seems like an interesting and useful language, full of things like regular expressions, closures, easy filesystem access, and runtime modification of framework classes. Second, O'Reilly's animal covers and solid writing style makes their purchase release collector endorphins in geeks. Third, computer books are expensive, and 30% equates to $15; not a bad bargain. I then received a "20% off one item when you spend $10 or more" coupon, good for this weekend.
Since my birthday was in the middle of the week, this weekend counts too. Since I had a 20% off coupon, I figured I'd go find another birthday present. I didn't really need anything, but I figured a percentage discount on a big item would be suitable as a present. I'd seen Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming series at Barnes and Noble, but Borders' computer focus is on "get stuff done" technology than theory, so no imposing intellectual texts for me. I figured the best place to look for big ticket items would be the boxed set cabinet, where I found a number of intriguing items. There was a complete Red Dwarf boxed set for $250, but I think I saw most of the episodes on TV and couldn't really justify $200 for the privelage of watching them again. But then I espied a complete Monty Python's Flying Circus 16-DVD boxed set. The set is also available 2 DVDs at a time for $40 a pop, so the base sticker price of $199 is the efficient way to acquire such absurdity. 20% off puts it at $160, just $10 per DVD. I think a DVD of Flying Circus provides $10 worth of entertainment, and it seems unlikely that I'd be able to find the whole series used for much less, so I had an employee unlock the cabinet and took my selection to the counter.
I set the boxed set on the counter, produced my coupon, and handed over my Borders Rewards keychain. The item rang up at $79.99. The cashier looked at the screen, looked at the box (price tag face up), looked up and said "I can't beleive it's priced like that. Oh, coupon I guess." I declined to point out the numbers on the price tag, proferred my debit card, signed the thermal receipt, and wished her a good day.
I'm ordinarily a big fan of independent locally-owned bookstores, but I haven't patronized them much lately. Boulder Bookstore's computing selection is frankly pretty lame. The Tattered Cover has lots of good stuff, but I don't think I've been downtown or to Cherry Creek since... I bought a Mac Mini in March. Borders and Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, both have branches within walking distance of my office and my apartment. And really, how can you beat paying $80 for an item which would cost $320 if acquired piecemeal?
So... anybody want to have a Monty Python Party? Or a discussion about the relative merits of (Monty) Python, (Jack) Ruby, and Perl (S. Buck)?
I'm quite aware that it would be fiscally irresponsible to buy a book every week just because I've got a four day window in which it would be 20% off. (Ignore for the fact that I have a few dozen books that I want to read which are already in my possession and don't really need to keep buying more.) However, I've been pretty pleased by resent results. To wit:
I bought O'Reilly's Ruby Cookbook last weekend, which had a 30% off sticker on the cover. I liked this for several reasons. First, Ruby seems like an interesting and useful language, full of things like regular expressions, closures, easy filesystem access, and runtime modification of framework classes. Second, O'Reilly's animal covers and solid writing style makes their purchase release collector endorphins in geeks. Third, computer books are expensive, and 30% equates to $15; not a bad bargain. I then received a "20% off one item when you spend $10 or more" coupon, good for this weekend.
Since my birthday was in the middle of the week, this weekend counts too. Since I had a 20% off coupon, I figured I'd go find another birthday present. I didn't really need anything, but I figured a percentage discount on a big item would be suitable as a present. I'd seen Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming series at Barnes and Noble, but Borders' computer focus is on "get stuff done" technology than theory, so no imposing intellectual texts for me. I figured the best place to look for big ticket items would be the boxed set cabinet, where I found a number of intriguing items. There was a complete Red Dwarf boxed set for $250, but I think I saw most of the episodes on TV and couldn't really justify $200 for the privelage of watching them again. But then I espied a complete Monty Python's Flying Circus 16-DVD boxed set. The set is also available 2 DVDs at a time for $40 a pop, so the base sticker price of $199 is the efficient way to acquire such absurdity. 20% off puts it at $160, just $10 per DVD. I think a DVD of Flying Circus provides $10 worth of entertainment, and it seems unlikely that I'd be able to find the whole series used for much less, so I had an employee unlock the cabinet and took my selection to the counter.
I set the boxed set on the counter, produced my coupon, and handed over my Borders Rewards keychain. The item rang up at $79.99. The cashier looked at the screen, looked at the box (price tag face up), looked up and said "I can't beleive it's priced like that. Oh, coupon I guess." I declined to point out the numbers on the price tag, proferred my debit card, signed the thermal receipt, and wished her a good day.
I'm ordinarily a big fan of independent locally-owned bookstores, but I haven't patronized them much lately. Boulder Bookstore's computing selection is frankly pretty lame. The Tattered Cover has lots of good stuff, but I don't think I've been downtown or to Cherry Creek since... I bought a Mac Mini in March. Borders and Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, both have branches within walking distance of my office and my apartment. And really, how can you beat paying $80 for an item which would cost $320 if acquired piecemeal?
So... anybody want to have a Monty Python Party? Or a discussion about the relative merits of (Monty) Python, (Jack) Ruby, and Perl (S. Buck)?