And you thought Barnes and Noble sold books...
Today I ran into Barnes and Noble, walked up the escalator, over to the 'new fiction' section, grabbed the new Chip Kidd, and headed for the cash registers. This all took approximately 2 minutes. I then had to spend at least 5 minutes explaining that,
"No, I don't have a membership"
"No, I don't want a membership"
"No, I don't want to save 6 dollars today by spending 25 dollars on a membership"
"No, I don't want a gift receipt"
"No, I haven't heard about the new return policy"....
I used to work at the Barnes and the Noble and hated (hated!) asking people if they would like a membership (so I didn't).
**But it's only 25 dollars and you save 10%! That's about the cost of tax! You can now buy books essentially tax-free for a whole year if you pay us 25 dollars now.**
See, if Barnes and Noble sells a book they make a couple bucks at the most, but if they can sucker someone into signing up as a member they make 25 dollars. So they hire people that know nothing about books but everything about pushy salesmanship. I was always disappointed when fellow employees wouldn't have an answer to the question, "What are you reading now?"
Even the cafe asks you to buy a membership for pete's sake! You can save 20 cents on this coffee if you buy a membership. Your total today? 27.00 for a small coffee. Now if you purchase all of your coffee here for the rest of the year, you just might break even.
It is the worst deal out there and they keep pushing the membership card like its some sort of revolution for the bookbuyer. I hate it so much that I usually never go to Barnes and Noble anymore because I don't want to hear about the card again.
Chip Kidd's new book better be really good.
