My Experience with Borders and Kinokuniya

Last weekend I was at The Curve and I decided to drop by Borders to check out a couple of books. Mr. Shaolintiger mentioned to me that Borders told him that they might have stock for this particular book I was looking for. Also, Kee Sitt did mention to me about Vincent Versace’s book on post processing called “Welcome to Oz: A Cinematic Approach to Digital Still Photography with Photoshop“. Initiatlly I tried searching for these two books at MPH and Times but there weren’t available and a special order or request needed to be completed.

Upon entering Borders, I headed straight to the “Arts” section and began searching for these two books. After a quick scan through two shelves, I just gave up and went to the information counter to ask for some assistance. A very friendly salesgirl was there, ready to serve customers, and she gave a warm smile asking me if she could assist me in anything. I gave her the name of the books which she was rather confused (I don’t blame her as the name of the books are long!).

Instead I decided to ask her search by Authors. Vincent Versace was not found in their database of Authors but they had one hit for Joe McNally. It was the book I was looking for, “The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world’s top shooters“. Happily, I went back to the shelves and found the only copy in the entire store and lo and behold, there was a huge tear at the back cover of the book. The tear was rather significant, one that if continued, would have taken the entire back cover off!The price of the book, RM200+.

I took the book and brought it back to the Information counter asking if there was a newer one as I showed the salesgirl the large torn section. She took the book, headed over to her manager and returned saying that since the book is new, there wasn’t any other stock and that the price would not change.  I was of course surprised and also not that entire shocked as it was a new book. I then politely declined saying that I wouldn’t want to buy a book that is already torn at a price which is way more than that you can find at Amazon.

After 10 minutes of browsing other books, the helpful salesgirl ran up to me saying that she had negotiated with her manager again and the manager had agreed to a whopping 5% discount. Yes, 5% discount! Wow, I must be rather stupid to pass an offer like that. Not! 5% for a book which is already overpriced and not in good condition? No way am I that stupid. This time I politely declined saying that I would rather ship the book from the US than to pay so much and get a torn version. End of story.

On Wednesday, I was at KLCC for lunch and decided to head over to Kinokuniya to try my luck on these two books. In less than 10 minutes, I found two whole piles of these two books in the Art section. Not only did they have ample stock, “The Moment It Clicks” was priced at RM186+ (compared to Borders’ RM200+) which was way cheaper. And to my other surprise, if I purchased Vincent Versace’s book (RM131+) at the same time, I get a 20% discount off “The Moment It Clicks“. Yes, that means I paid only RM150+ for “The Moment It Clicks” which is RM50 cheaper compared to what Borders was charging and it was in pristine condition.

Final score: Kinokuniya 1- Borders 0

Note: This has nothing to do with the staff or the service any of these bookstores offered but just a good comparison of their prices and their pricing policy for damaged books.

0 thoughts on “My Experience with Borders and Kinokuniya”

  1. I already got the Vincent Versace from Amazon US some time back, heh Joe coming out with a new book soon so the rumours say on using small flash (ala strobist style book).

    Will order the books from Amazon UK and pick them up next month when I'm at home, the book shops here are a joke.

  2. Thanks for sharing, I've never done a 1:1 comparison of the prices at the bookstore before, this is helpful. I've always found that Kinokuniya has the best variety and stock of photography books, and usually are kept in good condition.

    I'm going to get those two books soon!!

  3. Haha, you guys really crack me up (especially Grace!)

    I also found out that it is good to do some comparison especially the prices of books around. I find that the way the public mistreat certain books at the shop is also questionable.

  4. Good recommendations! Hmm, my Amazon associates account shows that someone bought Moment it clicks on Tues… wonder who. Anyways, I'll head off to Kino one of these days.

  5. Waaaa, thanks for blogging about this Mark. I always thought it was only a few RM diff but this is a huuuuuuge diff maaannn.

    Somemore I always buy the 3 for 2 books. Hmm…wonder if those are overpriced as well?

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