I’ve visited the Borders store at the nearby mall several times since the going-out-of-business sale started and have been amazed by the cash register lines — especially the first weekend — to take advantage of discounts ranging from 10 percent to 40 percent on books, CDs and other items.
I ran into a fellow I know standing near the end of a line that stretched across the store. He was looking at a wait of at least 45 minutes to get 20 percent off a single popular hardcover book.
"Why?" I asked him.
"I’ve been wanting to read this book for a long time," he said.
I pointed out that Borders has for years sent out weekly email coupons offering similar discounts.
"If people had been lining up like this all that time for essentially the same prices, Borders wouldn’t be going out of business," I said.
"I guess going-out-of-business sales bring out the vulture in people," he said. "It’s like Joni Mitchell used to sing, "You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.’"
I didn’t have the heart to tell him, but I was searching on my smartphone as we spoke and found his book cheaper online even with the discount he was getting.
Which, in a nutshell, is why Borders and many other good brick-and-mortar businesses are going under.
Borders was a revelation to local book lovers when it opened Hawaii’s first book superstore at Waikele 18 years ago.
Unlike most book outlets, which discouraged thumbing through the merchandise for too long, Borders welcomed browsing and even provided easy chairs and a coffee shop to make it more comfortable. It had Hawaii’s best magazine selection and an excellent inventory of CDs.
To the end, I spent happy hours on mall visits browsing Borders’ aisles; it’s just that I stopped buying much from the store years ago after Amazon took book-selling online.
As I browsed Borders, I’d take pictures of titles that interested me with my cellphone and then go home and order the books cheaper online.
Lately I was even more brazen, using the free Wi-Fi Borders provided to look for electronic versions of books I saw on their shelves and download them to my phone or e-reader.
I love ink and paper and mourn the demise of printed books, but after a lifetime of collecting them, I’ve simply run out of room for any more.
There’s something compelling about being able to carry thousands of books in an electronic device that’s smaller than a Stephen King paperback and presents a quite legible page.
If Borders could have stayed open by charging an hourly rate for browsing, I would have gladly paid.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
