Shame on you Barnes and Noble

[drofgnal]

I was in Barnes and Noble a couple days ago. I bought some Christmas cards on sale and a calendar. I frequent the store browsing books and having a coffee sometimes at lunch. When I checked out they asked if I wanted to purchase a $5 book as a child's Christmas gift. I said sure. I finish checking out and she hands me a stack of very thin paper back books. The first book was titled "Who Were the Beatles" A kid would even care? The other titles were even worse. I wanted to ask for my five dollars back, but I had already checked out. In the back of the stack I found a book on dinosaurs so I picked that. None of these flimsy books were more than 30 pages

I mean how @A$%A#&@! cheap can you be B&N. You couldn't like have provided a paper back of maybe Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, or some similar books that would be good for children to engage them in reading. The books you had for picking weren't worth 50 cents much less the $5 donation you wanted for the book. What a scam you pick a bunch of crap you can't sell, ask for $5 buck donation for a 'donation gift' to get rid of useless inventory. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Well no more, I don't buy books from them anyway, but in my browsing book sessions during lunch, I'd pick up a hard to find DVD, calendar, stationary, magazine, etc. NO MORE!! YOU HAVE LOST MY BUSINESS FOREVER. I HOPE YOU GO OUT OF BUSINESS.

Thanks! Rant over.

[HLS]

Wow, you are being a bit hostile. You should have asked about the book selections before checking out. Just plain common sense.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HLS

Wow, you are being a bit hostile. You should have asked about the book selections before checking out. Just plain common sense.

I think the point is that this is a particularly scummy and scammy thing for them to be doing. I'm disgusted by this and I didn't donate.

Shari

[Tomk2]

Was it a donation? Or a sale? Was the little book you were given a token for donating to a children's book program/ Charity? I am confused why the term donation was used.

[drofgnal]

It was not a token you were given for donation. It was the book being 'donated'. You donated 5 bucks and chose the book B/N was donating. The problem was it wasn't worth 50 cents much less 5 bucks. The just use this as a way to get rid of useless inventory.

[Phogg]

This is fairly mild for Barnes And Noble.
But.
Generally if they do something nasty rather than just tacky like this it will be dictated policy from corporate headquarters and the local people won't be allowed to fix it.

[MGlitch]

Just as a heads up, you can donate any book you want as long as it’s in the store and not obviously intended for a not kid audience (no donating the Kama sutra for example).

BN picks out the books they hold by the register for these donations because the books are cheap, in stock, and generally inoffensive unless you’re trying to be offended at them at which point the books could be anything anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

They pick cheap books because generally they’ve found people have maximums they’ll likely donate, five bucks isn’t going to break the bank generally speaking for most of their customers.

I’m sure there are other parameters, and you’re probably not going to see any popular books in those bins because the store wants to sell them and the best way to do that is knowing exactly where every copy is which those bins do not lend themselves to.

Really this is a rather hilarious case of mountains out of molehills.

There are plenty of scummy things BN does which warrant some outrage. This just isn’t one of them.

[drofgnal]

Maybe so, but they sure didn't go to any trouble to tell me I had alternatives. They clearly just pushed the junk at the register. My beef isn't it was a cheap book, my beef is it could barely be called a book, and definitely not worth 5 bucks. They clearly had a motive to get rid of junk and were not thinking or caring about the intended end user. Nice.

[BookCat]

"Donation" seems a misnomer in this case; surely you are buying? I'm confused, are the books being donated to the customer, or is the customer donating the $5?

It seems more like the customer is handing over $5 and being given a mystery book/s. Are the books a little like the poppies given for donations in November? Sounds more like you're buying them. Odd.

[Deskisamess]

I'm confused, are the books being donated to the customer, or is the customer donating the $5?

I took this to mean that the customer "donates" $5 for one of these books, a book which is then given to a child.

I agree with the OP that the books being given to kids should be actual books, such as Treasure Island and not a booklet type that isn't really a chapter book. It seems like a way for B&N to clear out unsold inventory and still garner a tax deduction in the process since the $5 most likely doesn't cover the prices that were marked on the donated "books."

[MGlitch]

You're also not going to find much in the way of books for 5 bucks especially not classics.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by BookCat

"Donation" seems a misnomer in this case; surely you are buying? I'm confused, are the books being donated to the customer, or is the customer donating the $5?

It seems more like the customer is handing over $5 and being given a mystery book/s. Are the books a little like the poppies given for donations in November? Sounds more like you're buying them. Odd.

BN has a selection of books at the register which are all going to be around 5 dollars, generally under. The customer "donates" the cash by buying the book which is then donated to whichever charity that particular store is associated with for the holiday season, each store will have a different one and if you ask the cashier should be able to at least tell you the name.

The charities are all going to be focused on getting books in the hands of Children's/YA audiences though the selection they have at the registers is on the far younger end of that spectrum.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

I took this to mean that the customer "donates" $5 for one of these books, a book which is then given to a child.

I agree with the OP that the books being given to kids should be actual books, such as Treasure Island and not a booklet type that isn't really a chapter book. It seems like a way for B&N to clear out unsold inventory and still garner a tax deduction in the process since the $5 most likely doesn't cover the prices that were marked on the donated "books."

Yes, that's exactly it. After finding a corporate email address on line, I copied my first post and sent it to them. I doubt I'll hear anything from them.

Yes MGlitch, you won't get much in the way of classics for 5 bucks but I'd have rather given 10 bucks for a real book I pick out vs 5 dollars for junk with limited choice. Harry Potter paperback is about 9 bucks on amazon, probably not much different in the store. B&N always has a table of classics on sale, some in hardback for around that as well.

[gmw]

I find the whole thing a bit dodgy. Chances are the charity these books go to know what these children would benefit from most. So give them them the money directly, along with the chance to buy books without no markup.

Of course charity isn't quite that simple. For whatever reason, people may be more inclined to give if they think they are giving a specific gift. The possibly better PR of giving books may make the company more generous.

There's a whole social sciences problem sitting here waiting to be studied.

[4691mls]

At back-to-school time Dollar General was doing this for school supplies for needy kids. However, they had a container of the supplies sitting by the cash register so anyone wanting to donate could easily see what was available and choose accordingly.

B&N should let you see the offerings before you decide to donate. Then if you didn't like the options you could choose to donate your money elsewhere.