Run for the Borders! Travel books on sale
 

...likely by the end of the week. Looks like Borders is headed for liquidation, so for those of you who actually get out of the airport when you do your mileage runs it looks like there may be a source of cheap(er) travel books.

My local Borders closed a few months ago and I picked up a half dozen travel books for about 55% off of list price.

The deal that I bought these on was 40% off, plus another 25% off of that price if you bought 6 or more items.

What they generally do in these liquidation sales is to start out offering 20-30% off, and the deals get progressively better each week. It's kind of a crapshoot as to how long you can wait and still end up with a reasonable selection, because once the discounts reach 40% off overall, the selection seems to get pretty well picked over. In the case of my particular store, the shelves were pretty bare after the deal got to 40%, but then they pretty clearly re-stocked the place with excess inventory from the other Borders stores in the area that they had planned to have remain open at that time.

It's going to be sad to see Border's go. I went to school in Ann Arbor, where it was started and actually bought books at the original on campus. With that being said, making a run to a borders store during liquidation will probably yield you the same savings as shopping on Amazon everyday. If you order enough books you can get them shipped for free and you don't ever have to leave the house, or Airport for that matter!

caveat emptor
 

Former Borders employee here. You're not likely to get great deals, as the liquidators don't typically give good discounts to begin with. When the discounts do eventually get to the point where you might actually beat Amazon's prices, there's nothing left but the dregs.

Absolutely. Liquidators are not in business to give the best deals but the impression thereof to do what they are paid to do: liquidate business. Make sure it's a good deal by comping against Amazon or wherever adding in tax at your location. Not saying good deal won't be found, but the general assumption that everything is a good deal in liquidation is a fallacy.

That being said, really sad to see Borders go. :(

Yeah my local borders store was only giving 10% off MSRP on travel books. A quick scan of a couple barcodes with my smartphone revealed that even with the 10% discount it would be more expensive than buying them online. :td:

and when yokel liquidators from the Midwest come into a place like NY and do 10-20% off not realizing that generally no store in NY sells things as MSRP and 10-20% is the norm, they show what idiots they are.

Gordon Brothers liquidators are headquartered in Boston...

An why the slam against the midwest? You think only NY stores sell things at discounts? These liquidators have a model that doesn't vary from state to state. If it didn't make money for them, they wouldn't do it. I'm sure there are plenty of smug New Yorkers buying books at Borders right now, not realizing they could save money at other stores or online.

I can assure you there was a long line of oblivious Houstonians at my local store. ;)

No actually having checked one out a few days ago, almost everyone was audibly saying that the prices stank, and the employees agreed with them.

Price comparisons have shown that current prices at places like Amazon and Wal-Mart are routinely lower than those being offered during the Borders liquidation sales.

No Deal: Skip Borders Underwhelming Liquidation Sales

and another

http://money.msn.com/saving-money-ti...c-c5cc38372cda

Outside of the very wrong geographical prejudice you are missing what they are actually doing.

They raise the price at first to scam the dummies who see the big liquidation signs and think whatever they buy must be a bargain. Even if the customer figures it out once they leave the store.....all sales are final!!
:(

So if any new yorkers buy the books, then those new yorkers are idiots?

Stopped by dc-area borders today. The travel books were still 20% off. I picked up some laminated street maps.