Books prices and marketing strategies in Singapore bookstores

I have been observing prices on two largest chain of bookstores in Singapore - Borders and Kinokuniya.  Read more to find out what I have found.

Borders

Borders in singapore once achieved the most profitable store by area size in the world.  It generated more revenue dollars per square meter or square feet than any other stores.  I personally like Borders as they have a large store and allows most of the books to be browsed.

While some people do try to exploit the goodwill e.g. stacking many books and read them at one corners for hours or whole day long, it provides many genuine customers an opportunity to read and evaluate if they want to buy the book. Sadly, recently, they started to wrap some of the books but this is still quite minimal compared overall numbers of books.

It also concentrates on English books and no Chinese or Japanese books are on sight.

For many years, Borders did not have any discount or membership cards. Last year, they launched Borders Preferred card. The card holder is entitled to have 10% further discount from book price or after any ongoing store discount.  This is pretty unique.

It entices customers to come to their stores. Almost every month, an email would be sent with a e-coupon for a big discount on purchase of one book.  Yesterday, I just bought 1 book with 25% discount voucher and additional 10% with the card.  I also bought two more books at a normal discount (see how it works to attract customers with big discount of one item and customer tends to purchase more?)

Kinokuniya

It has the largest bookstore in Singapore by area and located in Ngee Ann City (Takashimaya). Many o fthe books are wrapped so one can’t really browse the content to evaluate. Larger and more complete collections are offered here ranging from non-English books to less popular interest.

Kinokuniya has a long-running membership program that entitles the members to have 10% discount of normal book prices or 20% during certain promotion period (over the weekend usually).  The books they have is more complete while borders usually stock 1-3 copies and stop selling if it has slow turnaround time.

Facts

Book prices in Singapore from those two bookstores are excessively expensive. A book that sells for US$ 29.90 (~ S$ 42) would be listed at S$ 60.00. This mean most of the books are have 50% over their RRP in the US. Compare this with Amazon price, you’ll know that even the RRP is already high. Amazon never sells at RRP, simply because RRP (Recommended Retail Price) already have a significant margin included for bookstores to make money.

Typically, a book can provide at least up to 30% margin for the retailers. So in this case, the bookstores grossly increased the price by 80% to Singapore local price. It can even be higher margin if the publisher provide a special or higher discount for the retailers for buying in bulk.

Now, provided that the bookstores provide 10% discount, they store still earn at least 70% in gross profit margin. I would believe they earned a hefty amount of money even after substracting all operating expenses. No wonder Borders in Singapore can achieve the most profitable store in this small-population country.

So the next time you buy books even with 35% discount, think that you may be still contributing 50% of your book to the bookstore. It is a good deal but not a great deal.

One may argue that buying from Amazon is cheaper but become more expensive when added with shipping cost. True, but I still feel that companies should maintain a reasonable profit margin and no higher than that. Obviously reasonable could be different from consumer and seller point of view.

Platinum Concierge (American Express vs VISA) Part II

I returned from Japan and it is much clearer for me now. Apparently, American Express uses International SOS to liaise with the shop person by email. The shop person gave me a feedback that it’s quite difficult to correspond by emails, as he doesn’t have email address and only his manager does.  So this explains, why there was a delay of days for each correspondence attempt.

When I asked him on how Visa contacted them, he said by way of phone and he liked it that way. It’s faster and easier for him to reply.  I got most of ordered stuff including the last minutes one. Visa Infinite concierge did slip on one item that has to be pre-ordered. I ended buying on the street shop and cost me about twice more than if I were to pre-ordered from the store.

So what’s the next challenge? My company is trying to organize a conference for our colleagues all over the world. I was torn if I should contact both Amex and Visa concierge to solicit for proposal. I was hoping that they can leverage on their existing partnership with hotels in 2 Asian countries.

I went ahead with VICC (Visa Infinite Concierge) and they managed to secured me at least 8 proposals. They mentioned that they didn’t have any partnership with hotels, yet they find some good hotels and relay my requirements.  Within a week, I got almost all but a couple of proposals.  Thumbs up! Good work.

Amex was not contacted as I don’t want hotel to be contacted twice and also to waste any resource on either side.  I wonder if Amex concierge would perform the same.

Despite so, Amex has its own travel agency which is quite reputable globally. I need to make changes to my relatives flight on tickets that were not bought from them. They did helped me and spared me from long hold time by Singapore Airlines.  In peak season, one can be on hold for more than 30 minutes and not connected to any agents (call can be disconnected after ‘exceeding waiting time’).

Practical Advise:

1. Knows what services are offered by your concierge. There could be more than one concierge from your card
2. Leverage on each concierge stregth to effectively get assistance from it.
3. Knows when to back down and switch over the another concierge
4. Do not waste people’s time and efforts by getting multiple concierge doing the same thing.

M1: You deserve better (Continued)

In my abscence in blogging, I found out what M1 is up to with their ‘You Deserve Better’ campaign. Well, it was a crap campaign and it still a crap for me. Not only the advertisement wastes viewer time by strange and weird plot, it does not convey any concrete or practical message.

Starhub on the other hand has been very consistant with their campaign ‘Freedom’. The TV ads is pleasingly viewable and relayed a message that it is offering a freedom in mobile plans (Starhub does offer 3 months no comittment from last PC show).  

M1 was the first operator to start the campaign, as probably it knows it stood to lose more when Full Number Portability kicks in. Well, again, to me it doesn’t work.  They did come up with some ‘tweak’ in the plan and call it ‘You Deserve Better’. Sorry, M1, users want a simple plan with better value. The DIY plan may be unique but ineffecitve (Do we expect consumer to picks services they want till the nitty gritty)?

Singtel has not done much. I saw multiple pages of printed ads in Straits Times, but that it. I don’t think it comes with any breakthrough like Starhub’s 3 months no-comittment plan trial. M1 comes with ‘full unlimited’ outgoing talk plan.

M1… Please do something if you want to get more consumer and stop the nagging ads. It’s not funny.

Platinum Concierge (American Express vs VISA)

I have always wondered if platinum concierge offered by Banks and Credit card would worth at all. This is the first of multiple posts on this topics.

When planning a trip to Japan, I wanted to purchase some items from a local shop there. Unfortunately, the contact person from the shop does not speak English and unable to reply my request even by Email. I called American Express Platinum Concierge and relayed my request for the staff there to translate and contact the shop’s person. Although I received professional service, I found myself waiting 1-2 days per each way of communication.

Amex seems to engage a service provider to translate my request into Japanese and contact the shop by phone. In a week, I managed to get 2 times end-to-end conversation through the concierge. Apparently, Amex doesn’t seems to have a Japanese speaking staff in their team. Amex call centre is based in Malaysia for Singapore customer.

Tired with the delay, I contacted Visa Infinte Concierge. As I suspected, they have multi-lingual staff in their call centre. I managed to get a reply from the concierge in a matter of 2-3 hours after they contacted the shop.  Their call centre is based in Australia. There are multiple phone number that you can call, each indicating the languages that you speak e.g. English, Bahasa Indonesia, Malay, Chinese, Japanese.

This experience also confirms my reluctantness in using Amex concierge and reaffirms Visa concierge’s credibility. 

Note: American express platinum concierge (Credit Card) only provide limited service e.g. restaurant, golf bookings, while it provides wider services for charge card customer.  For this request, I’m comparing the concierge for Charge Card from Amex with VICC. Visa also has its own call centre for platinum card customer, which I believe will do the same.

Practical advise:

1. Despite all the mention of concierge services, don’t expect a replacement for yourself and a good personal assistant. You’d have to direct the concierge on your request, provide them with as many details as possible and follows-up with them.
2. Familiarize yourself with what kind of services avaiable from your banks/credit card companies
3. You may ask for staff who speak your language, if you prefer to speak in other languange than English.
4. Try other concierge on your request if you find the quality of service you’re getting is not up to your satisfaction.

Your Hotel Room (is not) always locked automatically

I had been in three different country back to back this week alone. On my last visit, I went to Bangkok and stayed in one of our corporate hotel. It was a good hotel (5-Star) in a good location, although the traffic jams are quite common in the area.

After completing check-in process, I went to my room to refresh myself before going for a dinner with a colleague. When I was about to leave the room, I closed the door and tried to open it again by turning the handle but without inserting the card key. Guess what? It won’t lock. Fortunately, I checked this, otherwise, anyone would have access to my room without any key.  I had two laptops, two phone and other personal valuables in the room.

I called the Housekeeping that eventually called the engineer who never came. I insisted to get a new room and finally was offered one after sometime.  The hotel staff also lied to me that they had sent a new card key for my new room. I waited 20 minutes and with two phone calls confirming the card had been sent to me, the card didn’t arrive.   After 30 minutes, I got my card and I knew the front desk officer lied, because at minute 25, concierge called me that they just got the key from Front-desk and going to send it to me.

I called the Duty Manager to inform him of the mess in his hotel. I got a box of chocolate for an hour of wasted time in taking care of getting a proper room.

Practical Advice

1. Always check if your room are locked before leaving the hotel.  In most cases, it will, but my experience above shows that it could happen
2. When inside the room, lock the room with two additional lock provided (slider lock and handle lock). This will prevent staff or people with key to your room to enter. You may be in the toilet and didn’t hear anyone knocking the door. When staff entered your room, it could be an awkward situation.
3. Request for room near to elevator or emergency exit. It helps to expedite your evacuation. I had been in a hotel that caught on fire in early morning.
4. Request for higher floor. Even it means a longer walk in emergency staircase, but it’ll provide some safety from bombs or explosion that can happen at ground level.

Mobile Roaming blues

Last updated: 31/05/2008

Do you ever get sudden drop of reliability and quality on your mobile service when roaming in different country? Well, you are not alone.  This articles discuss my experiences in few countries and a possible explanation what could have gone wrong.

I have access to two mobile service from Singapore: MobileOne (M1) and StarHub. The former being my business line and the later is my personal line. When roaming to different countries, I got into different sort of quality and reliability issues ranging from unable to make calls, unable to receive call, poor voice quality and a delayed call connection.  These are quite frustrating even for myself, how about for those non-technical consumer like my parents? They just have to accept such situation at face value.

The painful thing about roaming in different countries is that you can’t really contact your operator roaming partner in destination country.  To call your own operator back to Singapore, you’d spend a lot of S$ in IDD and they won’t likely be able to do anything either.

Let’s take a deeper look in few real life incidents:

1. Arrived in Manila tonight and my M1 service uses SMART Gold 3G with full bar. I didn’t get any welcome SMS or any kind of messages. I can make outgoing calls to Singapore but always stuck at ‘The number you called can not be reached, please check the number and call again’. I called both fixed and mobile line in Singapore.  I manually select GLOBE as the operator and I can make the calls and receive SMS.
2. Visited Jakarta, Indonesia many times last year and my M1 will always happily select XL as roaming operator. People from Singapore and Indonesia provided feedback that they can’t call me. When they call me, I got a single ringtone and the call will disconnect before I can answer. Switch to Telkomsel and all is fine.

The fact is each operator has a preferred roaming partner such as M1 with XL (Indonesia), TM (Malaysia) and SMART (Philippines). Preferred operators are the first one to be most of your roaming service unless the signal is not available, in this case the phone will automatically select the next available operator with roaming agreement.  In my experience, SingTel has the best and widest roaming partner followed by StarHub. I am having the most problem with M1 roaming partners.  As an example, SingTel uses Telkomsel in Indonesia (The best operator IMHO).

What could go wrong and some quick tips to avoid issues when roaming:

1. While roaming, it is very likely you’ll use more battery charge so take a spare battery or two and charge every night before going out from the hotel.  While roaming, your SIM card can access more than one operator, thus it keeps on searching the best signal available and switches as needed. This doesn’t happen in home country where it only need to search the strongest base station instead of changing operators (doing registration, etc).
2. Sending caller ID or own number to operator should always be enabled/allowed. In Nokia phones, there is a setting of ‘Sending my number’. If you set it to no, then the operator won’t know who is calling and unable to bill you, thus the call will not be allowed. Enabling it, will allow the call to be made successfully.
3. Set operator manually. This reduces battery strain and usually provide more stable mobile service. There are times when the signal of that chosen operator is not available or very weak, then you’d be prompted to select another operator manually. If you don’t, the phone remains off-network and uncontactable.
4. Set network to GSM/2G instead of UMTS/3G. GSM provides more run for the battery as it uses less energy. It is also the most stable network as in developing countries, the 3G network coverage has plenty of blind spot.  When going through such blind spot, the mobile will switch to 2G or operator which mean using more energy to perform the operations.
5. Check data and voice applicable charges, so that you don’t get shocked when getting the bill at the end of the month.
6. Get a local SIM card. This is the cheapest and the most reliable service you can ever get. The downside of this approach, it is mostly applicable when making outgoing calls or sending SMSes. Most of your contact won’t know your new number unless you tell them.
7. Get a permanent local SIM card if you visit a particular country very often.
8. Bringing a multiple phones won’t hurt.  Those portable battery charger (Sanyo Eneloop mobile charger, Energizer phone charger, etc) would be a good last resort when going over an extended field trip.
9. Check you roaming bill and ensure nothing out of the ordinary charged. Billing software can make mistake and sometimes you’d see ridiculous charge of unsuccessful call of 1 second charged for a full minutes. In roaming charges, one minutes of IDD can mean few dollars.

 Update (28/05): I am now in Kuala Lumpur and surprisingly the roaming with Maxis and TM are better in high-rise than it was before. Still when roamed in 3G, I would get disconnected in the middle of voice call with ‘Connection Error’ message for a few times. This is a repeat experience that I have in high-rise hotel in KL sentral area.

Update (31/05): I was in Bangkok. Received a call from Singapore in my office, I couldn’t hear anything on the other end and vice versa. Called with a local mobile phone, works just fine with the same operator. All is well back in my hotel. Just another example that roaming subscriber will get worse quality in some places even the local ones don’t. 

 

How many Internet connection is enough?

Are you one of those people who only use one Internet connection and feel it adequate? If so, you’re lucky. I’m not and I am writing my rationale for having multiple internet connection.

Where do I need Internet to be available?

• Anywhere in my home. If I can wish more, in pool side, gym, tennis court, parking areas
• My office (not the company Intranet access but a pure Internet access)
• In my Car
• Outdoors when I go to restaurants, shopping malls, parks, including when riding Singapore Flyer *ok That’s a bit extreme example*
• Airports

How do I access Internet?

• My mobile phones
• My work and personal computers
• PDA such as Nokia Tablet or PocketPC devices

Internal factors

First, it depends on the lifestyle and your characters. I’d like to be able to have information on my hand i.e. be able to find product reviews on the spot / shops, Get connected to Instant messaging while on the move, etc.  If this sounds familiar, continue to read more.

Second, it depends if you need to do work anywhere you go.  My work requires me to be connected i.e. push-mail or blackberry services whenever I go.

External factors

First, no Internet Service Providers or Telecommunication company can provide seamless ubiquitous internet service that follows me around. I mean, one company and one product that provide Internet when I’m at home, work, travelling or even abroad.

Second, no company can be best in different Internet services. Convergence of Internet in Singapore is not at the point where one can subscribe to only one Internet service.

Third, Internet connection must be available with the device I have and the location I am at that specific moment. 

Observation on available Internet services

1. Cable and ADSL Internet service, these services provide a well connection to constrained location e.g. home, office but are not possible to access it when we travel outside such locations.
2. Wireless broadband service, It aimed to be available everywhere (which is almost true for Singapore’s well coverage of mobile signal).  Some problems from this service include poor signal in high-rise area or slowdown due to excessive number of users on the same location (Cable Internet syndrome - Remember the Fat green pipe that apparently not wide enough for everyone?).  While in most places 3G and HSDPA grade networks are available, in other countries such high-speed connection only covers selected areas. You can’t use this service if you don’t bring your data card and a laptop with you.
3. Data service on mobile phones/smartphones.  Wireless broadband requires a data card and meant to be used with laptop. Data service here is tied to your mobile phone so that I can browse through it whenever I only bring my mobile phone.
4. Wireless Internet. Singapore’s IDA has a big role in making Singapore a well connected country. It has funded the Wireless@SGinitiative which I believe benefits many residents and guests. There are at least 4 companies offering such service at no charge for 3 years. Unfortunately, this service covers CBD (Central Business District), shopping malls and tourists area (e.g. Orchard Road) but none of the residential areas. 

My practical take on How many is enough.

Well, I need them all. They are serving different location and requires different devices to be used. So should one wants to have ubiquitous (Always available) internet service, they should have it all. My count at the moment on my internet connections:

1. Two from Starhub  for home (including MaxOnline and a free 1Mbps from HubStation which I don’t use). Read earlier post on ‘Locking in customer’ on why I didn’t terminate my service with Starhub after subscribing with SingTel.
2. SingTel ADSL service for home.  Apparently the fastest and the most constant service I ever had up till now.
3. Data plan from M1 SunSurf Plus, a data plan that allows me to use “unlimited” data service on my mobile phone with a flat charge with 3,5G speed. This is handy for my corporate push mail and to browse on the phone when I only carry the phone with me.
4. Wireless broadband from Starhub (Maxmobile). It comes ‘”free” with my MaxOnline when I forfeited my 15% discount of my monthly subscription rate. I am very happy with the service as M1 data service is disappointingly slow in areas that I use it.  I can get always my maximum capped speed of 1Mbps almost every time, every where with speedtest.net Singapore server.  Test with M1 data plan is rather low and doesn’t even reach 1Mbps most of time even if my cap is 3.6 Mbps.
5. Blackberry. I use this to retrieve my email boxes automatically. I travel a lot and being unable to get internet connectivity while travelling severely delay my ability read and respond my emails.
6. Wireless@SG(4 services). When it was launched, one would have to create multiple accounts as the provider of the service needs a separate username and password. Things are different now, Singtel accept QMax and Icellnetwork and more Single-Sign on are coming.  I seldom use this service as they are limited to a particular restaurant, cafe or shopping centre. I prefer to use my data plan or now wireless broadband. If there is a good signal, I’ll use it. Just like now.

So how many internet services did I get myself into? Whopping 10 services (Wireless@SGcounts as 4).  This doesn’t include those pay-as-you-use in my personal mobile line or pay services e.g. boingo or iPass.

SingTel and Starhub come really close in having capability to provide ubiquitous internet service.  Both companies have all Internet services covering from home all to the way to outdoor.  Unfortunately, they still productize their Internet services into separate and different product.

I envision a service in the future that allows one account, one plan that covers home, wireless, mobile, data broadband. 

 

 

STI: StarHub ‘blocking file-share program’

I read an interesting article this morning over Straits Times print edition.

Quoted from the article:

According to the report, released last Friday by a German research firm, only two other Internet service providers (ISPs), both American, block BitTorrent.

The report was generated by a German research firm. While Starhub did not really block the torrent protocol, it severely limits the upload speed.  Limiting upload speed will impact the download spead as the protocol encourages take-give principles.  This explains and confirms the ISP has been shaping its traffic for file sharing protocols.

There are debates if such protocols are allowable or should be blocked due to copyright infrigement. Well, Torrents are used both for downloading movies, music and also legal applications e.g. Linux CD/DVD images that are too big.  I see more and more websites provide torrent as a way to efficiently transfer their applications.  Most concrete example is those linux distribution such as Fedore Core, and others.

It would be very difficult to distinguish a non-copyrighted and copyrighted download for ISPs, but one thing for sure it is a bandwidth intensive application. Torrents are expensive for ISPs as their capacity is used up very quickly and had to upgrade before usual users complains about slow performance.  Alternatively, to limit/shape Torrent traffic until it is no longer a bandwidth intesive application leaving free capacity to serve more customer.

Does this decision has anything to do with legal and ethics, maybe, but the economic interest is more material than the former. Quoted from STI:

Another possible reason it did this may be cost savings. BitTorrent users are known to be huge bandwidth hogs, and are much less profitable for ISPs, compared to surfers who use their connection to surf or play online games.

Whatever it is, we should define ‘Unlimited’ term for broadband. Limiting users’ traffic in whaever way, would move away from the concept ‘Unlimited’. Similar to those mobile broadband Unlimited plan that was capped earlier at 1GB, then 5G and lastly 50GB.

Unlimited is Unlimited, Volume-based cap is not unlimited, Speed restriction is not unlimited if it hampers with overall performance significantly. 

 

M1: You deserve better - Really?

MobileOne (M1) has launched a campaign recently with its eye-catching TV ads.  This article discuss if it really sincere from a customer point of view.

[ youtube=http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=hayhKXu99iw]

As in my previous blog post, I have been with M1, as long as I can remember in 2001. I have switched to SingTel and Starhub, but had to switch back to M1 for one of the line. The line belongs to the company, thus it was not my decision to make.  I recall that I liked M1 during those days, they are challenging SingTel domination in the market and came with attractive services.  It didn’t last long, when Starhub merged with SCV, M1 seems destined to be the last of the three with lack of ‘bundling’ power.

The pitch from the ad ‘Some companies just don’t listen but we do….’

While I have not fully understood if the ad was directed to any or both of the other operators, M1 has also failed me in listening to the customer.  My reception has been very poor at my residential area for over two years. The engineer has visitted my building at least twice to take signal strength and quality, but no action is done.

When I enabled the cell-in on the phone, I see that my phone kept on switching base station even to one that is very far away.  Frequent disconnection, non-3G data connection seems to stay in my area until M1 has decided to really listen to their customer plight. 2 years is a lot of time to do planning and rectify the issue.

Oh well… hope we get something positive out of this PR campaign or the other two operators can responds with mock ads (recall Starhub fat green pipe VS Singtel’s dedicated pipe).
Here is the link to Survey from M1: You Deserve Better

Update (22/05): Straits Times published an article ‘Telcos go all out to snag ’switchers’ .  I still fail to see how this would better position M1 against the others. I’m happy with Starhub now and I used to be happy when I used SingTel before I had to switch to M1. If M1 wants to retain its customer, it needs to differentiate itself from the others. Surprisingly, starhub is the first one to come with HSUPA networks (up to 7.2 Mbit downstream and 2 Mbit upstream).  I would expect that M1 be the frontrunner in wireless broadband, because it doesn’t have anything else to distinguish itself from the others.

I await my days when I’m free from M1 services.

Lenovo Thinkpad price madness

I’m still excited with my new Thinkpad X61. It’s a good machine with a superb reliability.  This articles discusses the pricing madness with Thinkpad accessories.

Lenovo displays all available spare parts and accessories for purchase on its website (Link). There are so called ‘Web Price’ on each of the items. Surprisingly, you can’t buy from the web and will be referred to one of the reseller.  Here why I say there is pricing madness with the spare parts:

1) X61 4-Cell battery (40Y7001)

• SingNet special pricing: S$ 74 *bought on 21/01*
• Lenovo ‘web’ pricing: S$ 139
• Lenovo retail partner at Sim Lim square (Newstead): S$ 189
• Lenovo retail partner at Funan (Add-on System): S$ 189
• Deviation from web pricing:  40%

2) X1 8-Cell battery (40Y7003)

• SingNet special pricing: S$ 102
• Lenovo ‘web’ pricing: S$ 179
• Lenovo retail partner at Sim Lim square (Newstead): S$ 280
• Lenovo retail partner at Funan (Addon System): S$ 229
• Deviation from Web pricing: 60% from highest quoted retail price.

3) Thinkpad 2nd HDD Adapter (SATA)

• Lenovo ‘web’ pricing: S$ 88
• Lenovo retail partner at Funan (Addon): S$ 109
• Deviation from web pricing: 20%

As you can see, Lenovo displayed a grossly inaccurate pricing over the web and does not have control over market prices.  As these accessories are quite niche to power users, those buyer will have to pay the premium price to get it.

I called Lenovo Sales line and stated my frustration over errant partner who grossly sell the parts away from recommended web pricing. The gentleman admitted that he had some frustration too in the past and recommended me another retail partner in Funan. Although the later one was better, but their margin is still very high from the recommended pricing.

So why did Lenovo published those prices without intention of honoring or controlling the price? I’d really like to hear from them.  I would also wonder why was on those retailer mind by marking up the items over 40% (on top of whatever margin Lenovo give them before web price).

I’m really considering using those 3rd party parts from eBay…. for much less. While I don’t take chances with batteries, but harddisk adapter is fairly simple part.

Update (22/05): Won an eBay item on HDD adapter made by a Chinese factory. Will see how the quality will be.

If anyone knows why the pricing scheme is made so unreasonable, please enlight me.