How does Big Bad Wolf sell books at such a cheap price?
I went to Big Bad Wolf a few days ago for the first time in my life and this happened.
I bought 38 books for 6XXX THB. I went back and did a quick search and compare of the books that I bought. If I were to buy to buy them from book stores, it will cost me at least 22192 THB. That's an average of 73% off the books that I've bought! Here's the Google Sheet for those who is interested in the raw data. Note : If I can't find the book's ISBN, I didn't include it in my list.
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| Image credit : Darunwan the translator |
For those of you who prefer videos, I've made a video for you below.
How do they sell at such a jaw dropping price???
A quick search of Wikipedia showed me that Big Bad Wolf is organized by BookXcess. A quick search of BookXcess's about us yielded a clear answer to why the books are so cheap. Below is the partial quote from their about us section.
I believe the key is in volume enabled by their super attractive prices. Couple that together with the fact that Big Bad Wolf is available only for just two weeks. You have a strong call to action. The fact that I've bought 38 books is a good example of the attraction above. With the amount of people that visits the book fair in 2 weeks. I believe you could imagine how many books they could sell.
Pick up any book off our shelves and you’ll notice that it’s priced at about 80% less than any other bookstores… but they’re brand new.Not old, not second-hand or damaged – but brand new. How does this work?
1. Books are printed by the publisher, then sent to the bookstores to be sold.2. Unsold books, still new and unread, are often dumped, shredded, pulped… or sold off as remainder books.3. We purchase these remainder books at low prices, and pass the savings on to all readers and book lovers, giving all these books a new home.
Some cases may have minor shelf wear and the publisher may place a mark (a small line or dot) on the edge of the book to identify it as a Remainder Book. But this does not mean the books are damaged or used in any way.
Even more questions!
After reading the above, a few more questions popped up.1. Why would publishers sell remaindered books to BookXcess at that such a low price?
Publishers print large amount of books in anticipation of demand and to reduce cost. When these books don't sell well anymore in bookstores, they don't keep it because keeping stocks in warehouse costs money. Selling the books directly to readers is not a good idea because it might damage their relationship with bookstores. All of the factors above made BookXcess a good outlet for their unsold books. In fact, it is a win win win situation. Publishers will be able to reduce their storage cost and recover their sunken costs. BookXcess has an interesting and viable business model and we readers get cheap books to read.2. How could they make a profit?
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