10 % Bookdepository offer -- with a slight catch

gyrehead · Post by **gyrehead** » Wed July 14th, 2010, 6:35 pm

Bookdespository is offering customers a chance to earn a 10% off coupon in return for submission of up to ten friends' emails. Said friends will each receive a 10% off voucher to use. If used then the customer gets a 10% voucher as well. So any friends have to have an email they are willing to submit to BD. BD does state that emails will only be used for this single delivery of coupon.

I suspect most if not all here have received such email. But if you have not and want to get a coupon let me know.

sweetpotatoboy · Post by **sweetpotatoboy** » Thu July 15th, 2010, 3:22 pm

Yeah, I got that email too. Bit bizarre approach, I thought. I imagine most people will think it's a lot of bother for a discount.

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Thu July 15th, 2010, 5:37 pm

I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. I hate this particular sort of advertising.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Fri July 16th, 2010, 4:20 am

A 10% discount is not much. Powell's is offering free shipping for most book purchases for customers in the U.S. until July 18 - no minimum (or maximum) purchase, and you don't have to give them your friends' emails or do anything other than place an order.

annis · Post by **annis** » Fri July 16th, 2010, 5:11 am

Shades of those ghastly chain letters that used to do the rounds and to which I would never subject any of my friends.

Amanda · Post by **Amanda** » Fri July 16th, 2010, 8:53 am

Any discount is better than none! Particularly for us in Australia when we can get free shipping from BD. I have a second email account so I can get 2 10% off codes without bothering anyone.

gyrehead · Post by **gyrehead** » Fri July 16th, 2010, 3:42 pm

[quote=""sweetpotatoboy""]Yeah, I got that email too. Bit bizarre approach, I thought. I imagine most people will think it's a lot of bother for a discount.[/quote]

I thought it an odd approach as well. I'm guessing they saw too many of us return customers taking a disproportionate amount of the sign-up newbie coupons. And even if we aren't representational of the average customer, just going by the reaction here, who I assume are familiar with BD or at least online vendors, they put the wrong foot forward.

Not their fault that people seem to get the willies handing out their emails to a company. But of course if you plan on buying from BD, even as a first timer, you are going to submit things far more personal than your email. And friends who have my email already have an explicit trust of sorts. Certainly everyone I know I at least expect to ask me before submitting such.

But if people think a willingly engaged customer who is going to presumably offer up credit card/banking info, personal address, full name and phone number letting a friend submit their email is incredibly dodgy, they didn't think this through well enough.

And of course who wants maybe when you can get definite?

Of course just last week I placed my big fall order with them so knowing my luck someone would say "Sure" and then I'd have to look for something to buy just so I wouldn't miss out on the discount

Powell's sale would be nice if they offered competitive pricing. Even with free shipping I can find pretty much most brand new books at Strand for so much less it is not funny. Even if I have their courier delivery service drop them at my desk in our metro offices it is cheaper than anything Powell's offers. For that matter I guess Amazon orders over $25.00 are as well. Heck without the coupon pre-orders on UK editions really makes Powell's a bit pricey. Still Powell's does have a huge backlisted inventory so I should probably take a look at my old to get lists for any outstanding books from years past. It's been awhile since I ordered from them so maybe their shipping issues have been long resolved.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Fri July 16th, 2010, 8:36 pm

Powell's pricing is only going to be competitive for U.S. customers, unless they've developed an overseas branch I don't know about. Their inventory seems smaller than Amazon's because all of the books in their inventory are actually in their own inventory, whereas Amazon has a whole host of affiliated booksellers. Amazon's free shipping policy for orders of $25 and over is a good deal, but applies only to books in their own inventory, not to books ordered from affiliated booksellers. So if you're looking for older books that are not in the Amazon warehouse, but are in the Powell's inventory, the free shipping deal is a really good one! (But only if you're in the U.S.; and even then, it ends at midnight on July 18.)