Borders Should Go Out Of Business
August 2, 2008 – 6:09 amPerhaps I’m just a troublemaker, or maybe it’s that’s I’m missing something, but I believe Borders bookstore should go out of business. As companies compete with one another in our capitalist world, my experiences with Borders of late has led me to believe that they are destined for failure.
The picture to the right is from my favorite bookstore of all time, the Borders’ in downtown Boston. My favorite used to be the Borders’ in the World Trade Center in NYC b/c it was frequented by all of the wall-street types and always had the latest business books, but unfortunately it’s no longer there….
And the irony of my view point is that I love their stores, but I never buy anything in them. Every store is different of course, but based on the eight or nine cities I’ve lived in over the past ten years I feel that Borders tends to have a slightly better selection of non-fiction books than their competitors. My issue, however, is based on price and service.
Will we ever reach a point where people actually look at the price tag of an item and comparison shop in order to get the best deal? I can understand being impatient, especially when it comes to buying books, but I have yet to find a book that is less expensive at borders (in-store or online) than it is at Amazon.com. I’m sure some example exist, but I have yet to find one.
Similarly the service I have recieved recently has forced me to stop all purchases from borders. Over the past year I’ve received four gift cards of various (small) values for holiday gifts. I recently tried to make a purchase of 2 books on Borders.com, and discovered that their website had been recently redesigned. Prior to the redesign Borders.com was run through Amazon.com, and I had no issues with the site’s functionality or price points. Actually I did have one issue trying to purchase a book with a gift card and the customer service rep gave me the book for free because of my issue!
With the redesign, however, comes issues. The site couldn’t (and probably still can’t) handle orders that use two gift cards as the form of payment. Perhaps if the prices were lower maybe I wouldn’t need two gift cards! I called customer service no less that four times, and after about an hour of time invested in all of those calls this is what I heard:
- We know there’s a problem. Try it again tomorrow (I heard this 3 times). I entered my order from scratch 3 times. No luck.
- Let me check with my manager. We can cancel out one of your gift cards and place the value on another gift card so you can make the purchase. After 20 minutes this was complete.
- My question: “Thank you for your assistance. However I still have two gift cards each with ~$7 on them. Can you combine those for me as well?” Answer: “No. I needed to get special permission to make this change from my manager, and I cannot do it again. Call back when want to place your next order and the customer service rep can help you place the order again.” Wow. Great plan. They just lost a customer who buys about 20x more books than the average person per year.
Secondly, you can’t currently use gift cards as a form of payment on Borders Marketplace, the used-book section of the website. WHY EVEN CALL IT “BORDERS” MARKETPLACE IF YOU CAN USE BORDERS’ GIFT CARDS ON THE SITE!!! So hear I am, with money that was pre-paid to Borders, and I can’t use it to buy their over-priced new books (which makes me feel bad because I know I’m getting ripped off), and I can’t buy their used books either!
This year I’m going to ask for Amazon gift cards (or the equivalent) for Christmas and my birthday. If I get any gift cards from Borders from inattentive relatives I guess I’ll just regift them to someone who do doesn’t realize they’re getting a crappy gift.
Image Credit: Photo Tram
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