Borders Goes Way Over The Border

I have a new store to complain about: Borders. This really shouldn’t be much of a surprise and you all have probably already complained about them in your own heads at some point. I really don’t shop there very often at all and I was just rudely reminded as to why I don’t.

I occasionally do these survey thingys online that earn me points and such. When you accumulate a certain amount of points, you can then turn them in for various items from different retailers. The list of retailers is incredibly lame and one of the few on there that even sort of appeals to me is Borders. And so, I decided to trade in my points for so called Borders Bucks.

I’m not entirely sure if this was a good decision or not. I just looked at various prices on items that I have on my Amazon.com wish list and nearly fainted. It’s amazing, really. For example, the film “Amelie” is coming out finally on Blu Ray this month and it’s currently selling for $14.99 on Amazon. Even stranger, Amazon shows the “list” price at $19.99. And how much is it on Borders.com? $40.99. Yes, that’s right, $40.99. Seriously, I have no clue how any respected business can come up with that sort of price!

It didn’t stop there, though. I searched 10-12 various items from different categories off of my Amazon list and compared the prices to Borders.com. It’s ridiculous. There are movies, such as “The Kids are All Right”, which NEVER is more than $22 anywhere (Target, Best Buy, etc.), listed on Borders.com for $41.99. It took me 20 minutes to find a product that was only listed for $3 more than on my Amazon list. On average, most products seem to be marked up $8-$10.

I’ve discussed this verbally before. I know that the internet age severely hurt companies like Borders, Waldenbooks, Circuit City, and even Best Buy, and I fully understand the mentality that buying something right off the rack versus waiting 1-2 weeks for Amazon to deliver it is considered a premium in this day and age. I do sort of follow this thinking but seriously, $20 more? More than double? That I don’t follow. It’s highway robbery, insulting, and literally makes me hate the company that’s doing it.

In my opinion, there’s a really good reason why a lot of these 80’s and 90’s-ish companies are failing and going out of business: whoever is in charge and making decisions on these things is clearly a complete idiot and terribly out of touch with reality, appropriate price markup’s, and ultimately the modern day consumer. Borders, go ahead and shoot yourselves in the foot, if you wish, but don’t say that I didn’t tell you so!

Meanwhile, my measly $15 in Borders Bucks that I’m now stuck with may end up costing me more money than if I just purchased the product directly. I guess I can stop doing those surveys now.