Sunday July 22, 2007
Potter price war: Booksellers to meet next week to decide next move
By MANJIT KAUR
PETALING JAYA: The Malaysia Bookseller Association's 100-odd members nationwide will meet next week to decide their next course of action over the Harry Potter price war that has erupted here.
"The worst case scenario would be to return the books to the publisher," said its president Cheah Thye Wee.
MPH, Popular Bookstore and Times on Friday announced they would not sell Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after Carrefour and Tesco hypermarkets advertised that they were selling the books at RM69.90.
The bookstores, with a total of 100 outlets in Malaysia, have priced theirs at RM109.90.
They said they were protesting the "indiscriminate price discount," adding that it was not fair of distributor Penguin Books to "allow hypermarkets to sell such a popular book when they are not in the book business."
Penguin Singapore and Malaysia managing director Eddy Teo said the hypermarkets would incur losses by selling the novel at a cheaper price, pointing out that their purchase price was actually higher.
He said there would be no replenishment on top of the opening order due to unavailability of stocks and the British publisher of the novel, Bloomsbury, had no plans for reprints now.
Cheah said his association was shocked and disappointed with the price under-cutting of the seventh and final book in British author J.K. Rowling's bestselling series.
Hypermarkets should be giving discounts on milk power, rice and other necessities that benefited a larger population of the country, and not use bestsellers to attract customers to their outlets, he said on Saturday.
He said those in the business had waited for two years for the book to be released, and it would have been understandable if the hypermarkets sold the book for RM69.90 a year later, but to do so on the day of its launch was "ridiculous."
He strongly supported the decision of the four major bookstore chains to not sell the book.
"We will stand by them," he added.
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