I am busy with the future of retail at the
moment, hence no blog posts for the last few days, fortunately my bookshop will
be closed tomorrow and I will be taking a well earned break.
Occasionally I get asked how and why my
bookshop is still open when most largish general secondhand bookshops have
closed, I guess the answer is twofold.
1 is maintaining a fairly high quality of
stock.
2 is making sure that the majority of the
books in the shop are cheaper than you can buy them online.
At the moment there is a bit of an online
secondhand book battle going on between Ebay and Amazon with the price of an
average reading paperback settling around £1.50.
This is around the cost of posting a
paperback, which in itself raises some interesting problems.
Anyway I spent Monday and Tuesday taking
every book off of the crime fiction shelves in the shop and checking the price
against the online price, adjusting the price where applicable.
That’s about 30 shelves out of about 1,000
in all of my bookshop, about 30 books to a shelf so about 900 books, thank god
for barcode readers.
Anyway I am working on the general fiction
now, perhaps it would be just easier to match the online price at the till, who
knows, at the moment we are sticking with putting a competitive price on the
books and refusing to engage in haggling.
I went to a bar code demo at IBM in 1976, some of the retail people I was with said it would never catch on. They said shoppers liked to look through the shelves to find the bargain items that were marked with last weeks price. But in those days with double digit inflation prices were going up weekly.
ReplyDeleteYes Michael, I acknowledge your problems having been both a buyer and seller at your shop. Just remember that we don't all carry smartphones and assorted barcode reading paraphernalia.
ReplyDeleteI use Amazon to check reviews and synopses of possible books to buy [mainly non-fiction] before making the journey by Loop bus from Margate and entering your emporium. Then if you don but ... enough already. The world is big enough for your personal service and amazon information and efficiency too. Keep on keeping on and thanks for being there.
I bought a Kindle last year. Whilst it is useful for going on holiday I'm not using it much at home. The reason is simple. Real books are actually cheaper than the electronic versions. In addition, when you've finished with the real book you can give it to a friend or relative to read. You can't do this with Kindle books.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the aquifer, missing monitors or 0% salaries. All sheep talking about books when there are more serious issues. No wonder TDC get away with their corruption with simple minds like you lot around.
Delete0% stick to the subject of the post or your comments will be deleted
DeleteWell said, Michael, but back to the thread and I would just like to endorse the comments by Col. Please do keep going for no on line service can possible match the pleasure to be derived from searching around a second hand bookshop.
DeleteGood idea, Peter, entitled 'The Most Boring Man in Thanet' or 'My Records Stuck in its Groove' by the Aquifer Man. Doubt if even Michael could sell too many of these though if the prose is of the same standard as the blog comments eminating from that source.
DeleteAmazon has the besr price on ramsgate books and no hassle ordering. So I suggest you all shop at Amazon
DeleteAnd I suggest you learn to spell.
DeleteI could do that. Maybe the achievements of Ian Driver. I could do it as a pamphlet, I could do a series, perhaps the next one could be "Thanet, how it has progressed through recession with the help and support of it's population", although that would be a FAR larger pamphlet than the one concerning Driver :)
DeleteOn the subject of the thread though, I usually buy new books from either large disount stores, Supermarkets or Amazon, sometimes Ebay. Second hand books I always buy at Michaels shop, and while I spend some considerable time there browsing what he has, I often buy new books, and inevitably many more books than I intended. Even my family buy me books from Michaels for Christmas, Fathers day and Birthday! There is a LOT to be said for browsing, and buying what takes your fancy.
Can't do the Kindle thing, nothing like a book in your hands, I now have 7 book cases, LOVE choosing a book to read! Kindle just doesn;t do it for me!
Anonymouse 10:36 pm,
DeleteYou really are a spiteful little creep. Can you not find some other onanistic method to excite yourself.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteAnon pasting great chunks form other websites isn’t allowed here for a number of reasons, copyright infringement and spamming to name two.
DeleteAmazon has the besr price on ramsgate books and no hassle ordering. So I suggest you all shop at Amazon
ReplyDeleteAnonymouse 10:35 pm,
DeleteYou really are a spiteful little creep. Can you not find some other onanistic method to excite yourself.
Spiteful little creep is about right, John. Michael threatens to delete his earlier totally off thread comment so up he comes later, on Michael's blog, calling for people to shop at Amazon. At least this time there is no mention of the aquifer, which is a small blessing, but the nasty mindset of this insidious troll remains self evident.
DeleteIt certainly is a troll at 6:55pm and elsewhere but not the Aquifer Man. See below. Many people are concerned over the Manston aquifer and pollution and no credible explanation for clean-up.
DeleteMallinson seems desperate to engage in insults with all and sundry again - he can provide no explanation for the Manston pollution or TDC corruption.
A discussion on 0% salaries given the FerryGate scandal would be relevant.
I am the Aquifer Man. Accept no substitutes or pollution.
Aquifer man, do you seriously expect us to believe that the entry at 6:55 pm was not you when it is your style and topic, though I notice you do not deny the spiteful one on Michael's blog about buying from Amazon.
DeleteIf you want some credibility as well as avoiding people taking your name in vain, though I doubt anyone in their right mind would want that kind of association, it is about time you got yourself an account. Better still, start your own blogsite where you can rant all you like about your pesky aquifer and those that are interested can visit it. After all nobody else needs to say anything as you have well and truly flogged that horse to death.
Anon 9:53, how can we accept no substitutes when you are anonymous. Anyone can pretend to be you, whoever you are, and, in case 9:53 is you, how do you know many people are concerned about the Manston aquifer when no one around these blogs ever seems to support your view.
DeleteMr Mallinson is becoming a cheap version of Hamilton with his nasty and petty insults. I simply do not understand why he believes TDC is not corrupt, nor why he will not discuss the 0% salaries as requested.
DeleteMallinson'll pipe up with some sideways comment wriggling to save face. He can't explain the 0% salaries and doesn't want to admit it's Tory fraud. He'll fling some mud at Labour then go silent. A twit.
DeleteCancer Victim
So you are back to your old cancer victim sympathy seeking stance again, Anon. Basically I know nothing about the 0% salaries which, for the time you have been going on about it, would seem to be pretty historic now and I do not accuse anyone of corruption unless I know it to be factual.
DeleteIn any event, this thread was on bookshops and you have simply tried to hijack it for your own purposes.
Gee whizz Allan you raised 0% salaries with various insults. Then you say there's nothing wrong with 0%Gate. Then you say there is no corruption at TDC. Then you say you don't know anything about 0%Gate.You're a rambling random twit trying to deny the undeniable for reasons of your own, presumably party political. Why would you not want 0%Gate exposed? You pay tax and want to ensure it's not fraudulently used?
DeleteAnon, I queried what you mean by 0% salaries, that is all. There are also no insults in my comment yet you see fit to call me a twit. Can you not get the message that no one is going to debate 0% salaries until such time as you put some substance on your allegations for no one, other than you, seems to have any knowledge of the issue.
DeleteYou're mistaken Allan. No-one's going bother debating with you except Holyer for you are indeed a twit happy to excuse corruption.
DeleteAnon 1:15 pm,
DeleteI'm too busy to play with you today, can I come back and insult you later?
I agree that nothing can replace the wonderful feel and smell of the printed book.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if you spend long periods abroad in non Anglophone countries then the Kindle is a godsend. My daughter bought me one for this purpose. And you can read it bright sunlight, not that this aspect has been much good to me in UK.
Ignored.
DeleteCretin
DeleteA few thoughts here regarding the troll who seems to be a bit like a vegetarian trying to compare various butchers.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to comparing the prices of real physical books, as our bookshop pieces start at 5p, there is no real comparison at the very bottom end of pricing.
As far as working out which is cheaper, between my stock and Amazon’s, I have an advantage here, which is I can look at Amazon’s prices, but they can’t look at mine.
I am doing the general paperback fiction at the moment, comparing it book at a time my prices and Amazon’s are very much in the same ball park, it is unusual to find an instance where an Amazon price is 50p less than my price and in most instances I am adjusting the prices to be the same or less than the Amazon one.
There are instances, where a title is just very hard to get where I make the title very slightly more expensive than the Amazon one to maintain stock of the title, but these are few and far between in the fiction.
In terms of Kindle files and e-books, buying physical books from Amazon, Ebay, other online sources, charity shops, other retail physical shops – new and secondhand – I have to put my hand up to using the whole lot.
I read a lot, use libraries, bookshops and the internet for this purpose, but then so do most of my book customers.
Can someone explain whether it is the posting by anon(s) which elicits the strongly worded postings against or is it what anon(s) post about. I confess sometimes it seems one thing and other times it seems just the fact it is an anon.
ReplyDeleteMy view is simple. This is Michael's blog and he decides what he will and will not allow. If he has decided to allow people to post anonymously then that is his right. So, if JH and his alter ego don't like it they should continue their love-in over on JH's own site where free speech is more restricted and the abuse more frequent.
DeleteBarry,
ReplyDeleteIn my case it is always about what the person says, whether or not they post as 'anonymous'.
You fibber Holyer you're always going on about Anonymouses. Without that your posts simply have no information in them.
Deleteanonymouse 3:52 pm,
DeleteNot so.
I don't know what makes you so stupid, but it really works.
Ignored.
DeleteGood news Peter and it has taken long enough the area has been an eyesore for more years than I can remember but now it will at last be cleaned up.
ReplyDeletego take your porn pics...NOW!
Deleteme too
ReplyDeleteAmazon has the besr price on ramsgate books and no hassle ordering. So I suggest you all shop at Amazon
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 5:24 pm,
DeleteYou really are a spiteful and lying little creep.
John anon’s problem – which boils down to it being as difficult for a vegetarian to compare butchers as it is for a non-bibliophile to compare booksellers – obviously as the majority of Ramsgate books on Amazon are the ones I publish and have been put on Amazon by me it’s a bit of a non argument.
DeleteIn the unlikely event that anon does actually order a Ramsgate book on Amazon it is most likely it will be posted to him/her by me and I will receive the extra £2.80 Amazon postage fee, instead of sending it post free as I would if it was ordered via my website.
Michael,
DeleteI like it. The situation you describe is poetic.
If you don't use Amazon you may not be familiar with all of the intricacies. In fact, many items, including most books, are available for standard delivery, free of postage. You would only need to pay £2-80 for express delivery. The slightly irritating thing is that it defaults to express delivery and you have to actively select standard delivery. When you're in a rush it is easy to inadvertently forget to do this and then you have to pay the extra.
Deleteyes so trew
ReplyDeletetrew I think it is spelled T-R-U-E
Deleteonline bookshop is a very useful way to read the books, which we can not find in the market. The books of all categories can easily found on online bookshops to read those books.
ReplyDeleteyes , but Ramsgate shops are so much more convenient, especially Michael's shop so friendly and helpful. Been there many times. Always satisfied.
ReplyDeleteI CONCUR HE IS SO KNOWLABLE ABOUT RAMSGATE HE MUST BE AT LEAST A 100 YEARS OLD TO HAVE THAT INSIGHT!
DeleteThe ongoing saga of the Pleasurama site on Ramsgate seafront was featured in Friday's Thanet Gazette. Interesting that Broadstairs estate agent, Terrence Painter, ex-Chairman of Ramsgate Town Partnership, ex-Chairman of Margate Town Partnership and if the Margate rumour mill is correct, now also ex-Chairman of Margate Town Team has criticised Thanet District Council for having concerns regarding developers SFP and their experience in developments of this scale.
ReplyDelete
DeleteAs an exhibition space, i fear that the pleasurama site is hamstrung by the fact that parking is negligible, a rail link is not close by, there is little viable access for heavy vehicles, and large scale bus/coach traffic would also present a serious challenge, given the limited road space along the promenade
Is pleasure rama what was one merrie England is the the jist?
ReplyDeleteYes Merrie England was a great place in its day (1940s 1950s) many a happy hour I spent their as a boy, putting my money in the penny slots and losing all the time, playing the film stars and losing every time. Visiting Madame Zelda for fortune telling, she told me I would become a millionaire, I still have time. Riding the bumper cars, helter skelter, the place that showed 3 d films. Candy floss a 3 penny cone of ice cream from Pelosis, sitting on the sands a shivering, yes those were the days.
DeleteJust an observation.. and nothing to do with any subjects here. Ramsgate History. Com... I joined but it is a very INACTIVE site.
ReplyDeleteNot many people contribute lately, it needs people who contribute. Don't you all think so?
So maybe some folks here could join and perk things up with nostalgic recollections.
And photos.
Maybe it needs a new administrator that would promote it.
Any volunteers.
Very true, as a former participant I agree that this site is in rapid decline and is spiraling to a death, a fate that will ultimately doom it to the internet grave yard of forgotten souls.
ReplyDeleteDeemed to be forgotten and lost in a sea of unproductive servitude. Many will morn but few will resurrect this once interesting chapter in internet history.
R.I.P.
Oh my goodness, talk about over doing a obituary, wow, wow and wow!
ReplyDeleteHold everything I think a new post is in the offing, I see signs of life in the old girl...we can only pray and hope!
ReplyDeleteso sorry, false alarm, no posts, last post was in 1982...oh well
ReplyDeleteYes there was a person named LANGLEY that posted a lot, interesting things too, but even he or she has retreated into the abyss of lost souls.
ReplyDeletewhere are my posts?
ReplyDelete