Bookstore Went Bust for a Good Reason

I just read the Random Views piece “Dodging Bullets in Book Wars” (Oct. 27) and do not, in the least, feel sorry for these two dinosaurs.

Jeannette Watson should look at two comments she made and see the reason why her bookstore went out of business. Of her staff, Watson admitted that she “. . . would want them to be extremely nice to the customers and polite and not criticize their taste because sometimes the staff could be extremely . . . condescending.”

Now, I remember why I don’t live in New York!

Then, she ends by saying, “What I hope is that the consumers will really get educated: that they need to spend more money buying their books to maintain all these wonderful, very quirky, very different small bookstores around the country. I’m a symbol of someone who lost [her] bookstore because her customers didn’t understand that.”

News flash! Why doesn’t Watson go get some Marketing 101 and see that if she had provided less condescending service for her full-price merchandise, maybe she wouldn’t have gone out of business. Big chain stores are not the reason why little bookstores go out of business. Consumers choose and they choose with their wallets.

I’d rather click on Amazon.com for an instant book purchase at 50% off retail or take my time to flip through some pages drinking a Starbucks latte at Barnes & Noble than be subjected to narrow-minded business owners who feel that customers “owe” them their business.

Puh-leeze!

PHILLY YI

Costa Mesa