Carrefour will maintain its price at RM69.90 despite protest from majors

[Dashken]

Woohoo... lower more!

I've already got the *ahem* version of all 7 books, so no worries.

PETALING JAYA: As the sale of the latest Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, continues to soar, major bookstores and hypermarkets continue to lock horns in a price war.

MPH stood its ground not to sell the novel in protest at Carrefour and Tesco’s pricing the best-seller RM40 cheaper than the retail price of RM109.90.

Its marketing manager Renee Koh said that the management was adamant. ”But we will announce our decision soon on what we would do with our unsold stocks,” she said.

Three other bookstores that decided not to sell the book were Times, Popular and Harris.

The bookstores announced their decision last Friday in protest against the “indiscriminate price discount.”

Carrefour will maintain its price at RM69.90 despite the protest from the major bookshops.

Tesco, however, did not want to reveal whether it would increase or lower its price.

Carrefour Malaysia corporate communications and public relations manager Yuswanis Yusof said that the books had been snapped up like hot cakes.

The official sale began at 7.01am on Saturday and by 10am, the books were gone.

Although she could not reveal the actual number of copies sold, she said that each Carrefour outlet had been allocated no more than 1,000 copies.

Yuswanis said that Carrefour planned to stock up on the book but the management had not made its final decision yet.

“But if we continue to sell the books, we will definitely retain the (current) price, unless the (Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs) Ministry stops us,” she said.

Tesco corporate and legal affairs director Azlam Shah said that it would not be appropriate to reveal their decision whether to maintain the price at RM69.90, as it was part of their marketing strategy.

He said that the response over the weekend was still good and it still had stocks.

Meanwhile, Borders bookshop, which did not join the protest, ran out of stock by yesterday afternoon.

A spokesperson said, however, that customers could place orders with them.

The spokesperson added that its buyers were negotiating with the publisher, Penguin Singapore and Malaysia, to get a lower margin.

“We hope to be able to give a bigger discount to our readers,” he said.

Source: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp...nation&focus=1

[Adrian Wong]

Hoi.. Support the author la... Buy her books.

Okay, I think they are a little too much also, pushing up the price of the books intentionally. Hard for poorer people (like ME!) to buy them.

So, I guess I will have to wait until someone sells off his/her copies at a bargain price.

[Dashken]

Eh, get from Carrefour or Tesco. But better to wait. It's bound to drop to 40s.