Borders' response: We do not expect to have product to donate or to dispose of

Xephyr Inkpen (RISD) wrote on December 10, 2009 at 3:40am:

12/8/2009

Dear Xephyr Zanzabar,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding Waldenbooks store stock.

We agree that donating books is a worthy concept. However, we do not expect to have any remaining product to donate once we complete clearance sales at the 200 Waldenbooks stores that we plan to close in January 2010. To explain, we have retained the services of an outside firm that specializes in store closings/clearance sales. This firm has structured a process for these sales that involves discounting, moving product that is not selling to higher volume stores and consolidating inventory. Through this process, we sincerely expect to have virtually no product left - our goal is to sell everything. Therefore, we do not expect to have product to donate or to dispose of.

I hope this addresses your concerns. Thank you again for writing.

Sincerely,

Blanche
Borders Customer Care
www.Borders.com

Donate, Not Dumpster: Xephyr, thanks for your support and for caring enough to e-mail Borders. Regardless of the canned response you received, until Borders makes a public statement pledging to work with their distributors to find a way to donate any unsold books, and promising no books will be destroyed, this issue will remain unresolved. We have reliable info from employees that everything unsold will be dumpstered.

"We sincerely expect to have no product left" is noble corporate-speak, but the reality is that there will be unsold books after 200 stores shut their doors. And the cheapest, easiest option for Borders is to dumpster them. If Borders wants this effort to go away, they can issue a public statement promising no unsold books will be destroyed as a result of the Waldenbooks closings. (December 10, 2009 at 9:48am)