Would You Sell Below Cost?

There is huge price war out there over Dan Brown's latest book 'The Lost Symbol.' Retail prices start at £18.99 but here is a list of how much it is actually going for.

Amazon £9.49

Waterstone £9.49

Morrisons £9.00

Sainsbury's £8.00

Tesco £7.00

WH Smith £5.99 (with conditions or else £9.49)

Asda £5.00

Apparently Asda will make a loss of £4 for every one of this book that they sell. I don't know about you but I think that that is a lot of money. Their competitors may be calling them crazy for making a loss on such a transaction but if you actually look carefully, their parent company is none other than Wal-mart. So what do you expect?

This gambit also seems to be paying off for Asda as recent reports boasts strong overall sales growth for them. How can you argue with results like this? What do you make of a situation like this?

1) Buy!

Normally I will never buy a book which is very recently released. If you wait, prices will surely drop as stores try to clear off copies of the book that are no longer in demand. Or wait for the paperback edition which is sure to be a lot cheaper. However in times like this where the hardcover edition is as cheap (or even cheaper maybe) as the paperback version, why not? I'll definitely buy it.

2) Buy!

If I own a bookstore or am doing a biz related to books, I'll buy bulks of it and resell. You can definitely not get this kind of price from any supplier at the moment I believe and even if you sell at half price (which is around £9), you will still have a good margin. Heheh...