Retail amusement

[altivo]

OK, so I got a very nice book for Christmas of which I unfortunately already had a copy. Fortunately, it had a gift receipt from Borders in it. So today we braved the Boxing Day return and bargain shop crowds and among other things, stopped at Borders in Crystal Lake. No problem. They gave me a gift card good for the price of the book, plus the sales tax that had been paid. Full price at that. The gift card was good for a year, so I just pocketed it. Stopped briefly in the art section, since the book was about handweaving, to see if they had anything good that I don't already own. Nothing.

After we got home I thought I'd look at Borders on-line site. Well, as it turns out, www.borders.com just goes to Amazon now. Huh. But yes, they accept the Borders gift card. I could have ordered back the same book, at the Amazon discount, AND paid no tax and no shipping. ;p There would be money left over, about 25% of the total value of the card. But, as I said, I already own that book and good as it is, I don't need two. So I got two other books, one on handspinning and one on weaving, for just slightly more than the value of the gift card. I'm pleased, but somehow I don't think that's really what Borders intended to do.

Comments

[doc-moreau.livejournal.com]

I have a borders giftcard, but every time i tried to use it on Amazon it would always say the code was wrong. I tried it multiple times on different days, and it never worked.
But, i ended up going to borders anyway, and it worked just fine there. heh.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

They took this one without any objection. We'll have to see what happens when the stuff gets shipped.

I found it rather confusing at first because I was expecting the old Borders web site rather than Amazon.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

We don't have Borders here at all so if you had a card here it would be completely useless except online.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, so far I'm just assuming that the card worked. They said it did.

Borders vary quite a bit. Most are rather mediocre, but if you can find a really large one they do have an excellent selection of books and music.