If I recall correctly, there use to be a sign inside each Chapters store that boasted "100 000 Titles In Stock". I suspect that the real in-store figure is more like 40 000. Without knowing how many and which of these 40 000 titles were Chapters "bestsellers" and eligible for a 50% discount come Sunday, I wasn't sure if a trip to the store this weekend was worthwhile or not. (All other books are 20% off.) So I did some reconnoitering this evening.
I flagged down an employee with pink and blue hair. She led me to the computer kiosk to look up the bestsellers list and started to mention that she'd probably have to go to the front desk to generate a printout, when we were interrupted in mid-sentence by a 50-ish man sitting at a table (which I hadn't noticed till this instant), arrayed with what were obviously his book—the author at a book signing, no less.
He pitched the premise and plot—JFK's second assassin (the conspiracy theory people were right after all!) was grooming his son, who was living in northern BC, to assassinate the current president. I read the back cover and thumbed through a few chapters. The sales associate had left for the front by this time. Not my genre, I told him, as gently as I could. I noticed another book off to the side. It's a book about how, after he was clinically dead for eight minutes in a drowning incident, he eventually made sense of the world and found god. Make that God. I beelined to the Biography section as soon as I got the list in my hands.
A very short list, it turns out. If it's correct, then there are a blistering total of 22 titles. 22 out of 40 000 means 0.6% of the books are at 50% off. And when you factor in the current exchange rate of 1.12 versus the 1.3 to 1.4 currency conversion typically set for each book (e.g. $29 US, $39 CDN), then the 50% isn't so attractive anymore and not a big hit to Chapter's wallet.
A price comparison of two non-bestsellers on my list of to-gets yields the following:
The Caine Mutiny, $17.44 at Amazon.ca, $18.36 at Chapters (20% off list).
Second Coming, $17.44 at Amazon.ca, $18.40 at Chapters (20% off list).
So the 20% off non-bestsellers is not so attractive, either.
If you're comfortable with ordering online (I am) and don't need a title immediately, then the Chapters promotion is a non-event.
I was going to say words of encouragement to the author on my way out, "Keep up with the writing," perhaps. But he had trapped another patron. So I thought the better of it and left.
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3 comments:
Chapters is Canadian. Why not support canadian business?
By all means support Canadian.
However, I've found that amazon.ca (which I believe is basically amazon with a handful of people dedicated to Canadianizing the .ca website and sourcing Canadian works) has a deeper catalogue.
Also, in the past, not sure about now, a big chunk of Chapters was owned by American Barnes & Noble.
In the last 6 months, I've placed 10 orders with amazon.ca (not amazon.com), and 9 orders with Chapters.ca. But I pick up quite a bit of stuff in-store, so Chapters gets the nod overall.
Sometimes price and availability matter to me. Amazon also has more reviews on their website, so it makes ordering easier.
So, when I'm online, I give half my business to Chapters, half to Amazon, even though I find the Amazon site to be the better product, and it's often cheaper.
When it comes to stores, I give all my money to the Canadian stores. It's not like I have a choice ;-)
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