What it reminded me of is something on eBay which is a little more troublesome. Namely, people who post that if you have zero feedback, they don’t want your bids – period. It luckily isn’t the case, but do these people realize what would happen if every seller set such a hard line? New users would essentially be locked out of eBay. Personally, I don’t really see the big deal about accepting bids from users with 0 feedback. If they don’t pay up, eBay has methods to deal with them. I suppose they could gain feedback by selling rather than buying, but again, they would run into a similar issue: most buyers I’ve ever spoken to tend to avoid sellers with 0 feedback, as they’re afraid they’ll pay up and never get the item. The solution to that problem would be to just use PayPal for payment, and you’re covered.

Sadly, though, I must say that, at least for the things I go after, eBay has become less and less useful over the years. It’s jam-packed with items listed at retail price, which is a bit baffling. The whole idea behind shopping at eBay is to get a decent deal, or at least, I thought it was.  If I want to buy something at retail price, I’ll go to amazon.com. I’ve also grown increasingly tired of people listening items at $.99 with a shipping price of $15 or $20. If you feel that your item is worth $20, that’s cool with me. But list it as such, don’t try and trick people into bidding for a buck, only then to discover that they’ve just bid, in reality, $21. That’s just dirty.

I just placed an order at amazon.com. The books that I wanted were:

• Russian for Beginners by Charles Duff
• Dictionary of Spoken Russian by the U.S. War Department

New, the book by Charles Duff is $13.22. The Dictionary of Spoken Russian, if bought new, is $14. That comes to a total of $27.22, with free shipping, because they both qualify for the super saving shipping. With amazon, if your items all qualify, any order over $25 gets free shipping. One might think that that’s a pretty good deal for those books: amazon.com offers both books for $3-4 less than retail, and you get free shipping. Not too shabby at all when you compare it to what you’d probably pay at a brick-and-mortar bookstore, like Barnes and Noble.

However, if you aren’t averse to used books, a much better deal can be had elsewhere – or rather, still at amazon, but through other sellers. I was able to get both books, shipping included, for a little over $11. Are the books brand new? No. But will I still be able to read them / study from them? Yep. If the books are readable and not falling apart, they’ll be just fine for me.

So, by going the used route instead of new, I was able to get the same books for less than half of the price I’d pay for them new. Instances like this aren’t the rule – some used books are a little more expensive, and some are a lot more expensive – but instances like this aren’t rare, either. I’ve been able to snag many books from amazon sellers in the past for a mere penny. Granted, the used book sellers on amazon generally charge $3.99 for shipping, but that’s still $4.00 for a book, including the shipping – and that’s usually a great deal cheaper than what amazon.com proper is asking.

Saving money is generally considered a good thing, but in this case, the bibliophile in me really rejoices, and loudly. Why? Because I can now convince myself that because I saved $16 or so on those 2 books, I can spend $16 on other books. Thus, I say again: I love used books.

You recently expanded your store in my area a great deal. You added a Starbucks, a Donatos, a sushi bar, and countless new aisles. For you, this is, I suppose, a good thing. More space, more products, (hopefully) more sales. I’m happy for you.

However, was it really necessary to change the location of so many items? Certainly, with the expansion of the store, things couldn’t be in the exact same place. I get that things had to be moved a bit to deal with the new additions.

But do so many things really need to be moved across the frakking store? Not only have some things been moved to a totally new location, miles away from their original spot, some items that I buy normally weren’t to be found at all. Whether they’re hiding somewhere that I missed, or they disappeared in the move, I don’t know.

Please provide an updated floor plan, set out at the doors, for your customers. We’d really appreciate it. When someone is craving banana-flavored chips, it’s quite frustrating to be not be able to find them.

Thanks.