I’m a Quaker from
South Jersey with a love of
outreach and ministry.
More bio and my contact information in my
about Martin
post. My other sites: QuakerQuaker.org, a
social networking site for Quaker bloggers and
MartinKelley.com, my
technology blog and freelance web services site.
Quaker books and self-defeating bargain hunting
Got an email in the bookstore today from a potential customer who chose Amazon over my employer, a niche independent bookstore, because of their cheap cheap prices. I got a bit inspired by my reply, included here.
Subject: book pricesI really wanted to buy the below book [Why Grace is True], but I checked amazon. com. Their prices: new is $16.07, or used from $5.94. Your price is $22.95.
I know how hard it is to be competitive, but I wanted to let you know that people do comparison shop.
Blessings, C.
Dear Friend,
Yes, Amazon, Walmart and the rest of the global media/distribution juggernaut will always be able to underprice us on the mainstream books.
What we offer is a much wider selection of Quaker books than anyone else. We don't just have the more watered-down books aimed at the general population (mostly with the unsaid premise "what you can learn from those folksy Quakers"), but a whole list of books about Quaker religious education, Quaker vision, Quaker belief, Quaker history and what it means to be a Quaker today. We don't just have the HarperCollins titles, but those from Quaker publishers that Amazon's never heard of. We easily beat Amazon in selection and we certainly match them in speed and customer service.
We give a more grounded context to what these books mean to Friends--the reviews on our site's If Grace is True are written by Friends for Friends. We try to know our books. When people call us up we'll help with their selection. When they're trying to decide, we'll read the table of contents to them. Quaker publishers and booksellers talk about the "ministry of the written word", which means remembering that there's a purpose behind this bookselling. These books aren't commodities, they aren't units, they're not ISBN numbers to be packed and shipped. We'd rather not sell a book than sell a book someone wouldn't value (which is why we'll include negative book descriptions & comments).
Paying a few extra dollars to support us means your also supporting the outreach and Quaker self-identity our catalog provides for many Friends. Plus you can be assured our employees get living wages and health care (for which I'm personally thankful).
So yes, customers can save a few bucks at Amazon. Always will be able to. But your purchasing decisions are also decisions about who you support and what you value. There's a price to distinctiveness, whether it's cultural, religious, regional, culinary. By buying from Amazon you're financing a Wall Street-run commodity seller that doesn't give a jot about Quakerism or even whether grace might be true. If enough Friends choose price over content, then Quaker bookstores and publishers will disappear, our only representation being mainstream books sold at generic shops. That will cost us a lot more than seven bucks.
Well, I hope you enjoy the book. I'm sure Amazon appreciates your patronage.
In friendship,
Martin Kelley
3 Comments
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Just a follow-up about the price-shopping Quaker... Our Friend did place an order the next day with Quakerbooks. In my confirmation email, I apologized if my response was a little "over-argued" and he wrote back:
bq. "Not at all. I don't even shop at WalMart for the same reason. I want Quakerbooks to succeed and be around forever."
Aww, how sweet. It's nice to know there are Friends like this. It makes me a bit more hopeful for the future of the grand Quaker project!
Loved your comments about Quakerbooks.org. I make an attempt to support it as often as I am able to, especially when ordering Quaker or other related books. I particularly like to order Christian related things via them to remind them not to forget about THAT aspect of Friends. :) (By the way, they do a fine job NOT forgetting it, thank God!)
Also: love your blog! I'm not a yonger Friends (just turned 45), but heartily agree with many of your concerns about us unprogrammed liberal Friends here in the States. Well done, Friend!
PS: I also appreciated your links to other Friends doing blogs. Nice resource.
Hi Joe,
Thanks for using the FGC bookstore. I'm all in favor of you using your selection to promote Christian awareness among Friends! I'm always happy to sell the more Quakerly materials, as my staff pick will attest to. At 37, I'm not all that far behind you in the younger Friends category but a lot of my "generational" concerns aren't deterministically age-related. Good to hear from you, glad you like the blog.