Notes from the Cape

Here is a great idea for our bookshops.

When I left Phoenix, I went to the local airport bookshop to buy a book for the flight and the last few days of holiday ( ok – so I was going to New York and hardly needed a book!). But anyway, the bookshop had a great policy.

If you bought any book and returned it within months, you get a 50% refund. All the books that had been returned were for sale in the bookshop at a 50% discount. So everybody wins.

• The bookshop the sells the book for what it paid for (50% of cover price ) – so they break even. However the probability is that the person selling the book is going to buy a new book – so they get a sale.
• The person selling the book essentially gets a 50% discount.
• The person buying the second-hand book gets a book at 50% off!

So, Exclusive Books and your friends, how about a similar policy? I can see it working very well for the regular travelers, and it will generate more interest in books (especially with the local price of books!).

The bookshop is called The Paradies Shops (sic), and they seem to be in most airports in USA. I never had the opportunity to make use of the policy – but well done on having it anyway – 1 orchid to you.