Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?

On Feb 20, 4:44 am, "RWF" wrote:
On Feb 20, 4:11 am, wrote:





On Feb 18, 1:54 pm, "RWF" wrote:

On Feb 16, 1:07 pm, wrote:

There is dealer in my area who got exercised
because I simply ask him if a paperback
was new or used.

Geez palmjob, after going on at length in about a million posts about
how smart and knowledgable you are, one would think you'd be able to
tell the difference between a new and a used paperback!
I guess it's true that self-abuse does diminish one's eyesight!

You are full of beans, as always. It is often absolutely
impossible to tell whether a book is new or "used, like
new." Yes, sometimes books do have that "never been
opened" look and feel. On the other hand, a great many
books have been opened, browsed, thumbed-through,
etc., right in new bookstores. Or, are you going to
invent a rule that states that a book which has sat
on a bookstore's shelves for a while cannot be called
new? Of course, the custom of trade in the book
business does not adhere to any such ridiculous rule,
as you well know. When a book has been owned by
a careful reader, it is often impossible to say from
looking at it whether it is new or "used, like-new."
Yes, you can often tell if a book has been opened, but
you have no way of determining whether it has been
opened by someone glancing through it in a bookstore
or has been opened by a careful reader. So, in your
pathetic attempte at humor, your are blaming me
for not knowing things that no one else could
possibly know either. You're really sort of dumb,
aren't you? A veritable dim bulb! 'Fess up, now...

[Memo from the upstairs office.]

Good old balmy palmy, just making stuff up as you go along, as usual.
Palmjob, you cretin, I know you are a reclusive, anti-social old fart-
sniffer but even a moron like you should have enough knowledge of
human nature to know that if the book looked like it was new, the
dealer would charge you for a new book, not a used one.
You're really sort of dumb, aren't you? A veritable dim bulb!
'Fess up, now...- Hide quoted text -

How typical of a low-wattage bulb like you to hurl
scatological insults when cornered by your own
feeble arguments. No, as a matter of fact the
best used book dearlers do NOT charge cover
price for a paperback simply because it looks
like new. They have found from experience that
their customers favor a consistent pricing policy.
One of the more successful used book dealers
in this area has a consistent "one-half cover
price" policy for all paperbacks, with the
exception of those older ones having a cover
price of $4 or less, for which they charge a
flat $2, whether the original cover was $4 or
$2.95 or whatever. (And also they do charge
more, of course, for vintage collectible p.b.s).
But as for a brand new looking trade paperback --
fiction or non-fiction -- or a mass market paperback,
they charge a standard 50 percent of the cover
price. Since the customers know they are a used
bookstore they would certainly lose business if they
started charging higher rates for paperbacks
simply because the paperbacks looked brand
new. Now, if someone as stupid as you
took over the store, he would suddenly start
charging cover price for every paperback which
looked new, and he would simply drive people
away. Sort of like "Yes, we have thousands
of used paperbacks priced at one-half cover
price, but, as you can see, dear customer,
THAT paperback looks BRAND NEW so
we are going to have to charge you full
cover price." You sound like someone
who has been buying your paperbacks
in big city schlock shops where they would
actually run a business in such a shabby
fashion! But, then, you have already been
revealed to our readers as a -- putting the
matter as charitably as possible --
low-wattage type... Cheers.

[Memo from the upstairs office.]



- Show quoted text -