Did Sears Just Win Online Book Biz?
Last week, Wal-Mart cut the price of some popular new books to just $10, a slice of over 60%. Not willing to be out-done on home turf, Amazon matched them. Wal-Mart went down to $9. Amazon went to $8.99. Target jumped in tardily at $8.99. Then Sears jaunted into the battle and dropped some serious knowledge: books for free.How? Buy any one of those deep-discounted books at Target, Wal-Mart, or Amazon, and send Sears the receipt at [readamerica@customerservice.sears.com], and they’ll give you a credit of $9 towards anything you buy from Sears online.
Rich on October 27th, 2009 7:17 am
No, Sears hasn’t won the book wars, they won the PR battle.
Look at the offer’s fine print.
“$9 Off Purchases of $45 or more on sears.com only.” That’s a 20% discount.
Sears has offered discounts (some higher) before.
“Excludes great price, clearance, and closeout items, outlet store purchases, special purchases, introductory offers, phone orders, catalog orders, electronics, Sears Auctions on ebay Lands’ Endmerchandise, items purchased from landsend.com, Computers, Video Consoles, Video Games, Celestial StarDiamonds, Steinhausen,….”yadda, yadda, yadda. So what CAN you use your $9 credit for?
And here’s the killer…”One coupon per purchase.” Forget about buying 10 books and getting $90 dollars off that Kenmore.
And only the top 10 books qualify! This is just Sears attempt to get some free press by jumping on the book bandwagon. If Sears is so concerned about “Read America” why don’t they sell books?…or give them away free?
Just my thoughts, I could be wrong.
Dane Carlson on October 27th, 2009 3:51 pm
Very good point, Rich!
Leave a Reply