Friday, October 16, 2009

Whitcoulls's website

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is $20.95 on Whitcoulls’s web-site but $32.99 at my local mall Whitcoulls (St Lukes, Auckland).

The difference is dramatic, and it’s clear which price is, as it were, objectively correct. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters has its US price on the jacket: 12.99 US, which converts to 17.50 NZ.

Although I haven’t systematically checked other titles, my sense is that many items that are ~$20 on the web-site are ~$30-35 store retail. The practical conclusion is obvious – no convenience (let alone the endlessly degraded, low stock, Whitcoulls simulacrum of convenience) is worth a 57% mark-up.