| rev:text
| - I'm a long time Bookman's customer and frequented all of the Tucson locations as I lived there for many years. Since moving to Glendale, I'm a regular at the Phoenix store and occasionally venture out to Mesa. I've checked out the Flagstaff store a couple of times. I've also read the Yelp reviews on all of them and it's nice to see all the positive comments and I certainly add mine as well. I think Bookman's overall is a great company and a valued asset to Arizona. It seems the common complaints are: not a very wide variety of merchandise, higher prices than other places, "weird" employees and patrons, and "stinginess" on what they'll take in trade and give in return. And they're guilty as charged. I'd like to talk a bit about each one. As far as the variety of merchandise, the company started as a used bookstore and continues to be one and offers one of the biggest collections of used books I've ever seen. Over the years, they've gradually expanded their offerings to what they have today and they continue that as far as their available space allows. I see their other merchandise they take in trade such as antiques, collectibles, and music instruments as an added bonus to an already great used entertainment store. The sky's the limit on how wide a variety of merchandise they could stock, just as it is for antique stores and thrift shops. Sure, they're not going to have what everyone's looking for but what place does? They're known all over for their used books and music and I would venture to say that's what most people go there to buy with nothing else in mind until they get there and lo and behold! Look at all this other neat stuff! Higher prices? I also see that being characterized as "ripoff" prices in a lot of reviews. No different than grocery or department stores. Some will be higher, some lower. I don't know what their pricing policy is but like anywhere else, if you think something's overpriced go and find it elsewhere at possibly a lower price. The "weirdness" of employees and patrons? I don't care how "weird" an employee seems as long as they're polite and eager to be of service with genuine enthusiasm. From my experience, the vast majority of them do just that. The ones that don't don't last there very long. "Weird" patrons think everyone else is "weird" too. Everyone's weirdness is one of the reasons "people watching" is popular. And Bookman's provides nice chairs for it. The last one is an area I've observed closely during visits, primarily at the Tucson Speedway location, which is excellent for people watching and offers a great view of the trade counter. I'm amazed at how mad people get when Bookman's doesn't take all 1000 of their hard cover books or velvet oil paintings they've brought in. They have to take what they think will sell based on demand and what they see being sold at the cash registers. But look around and you'll find things they're taking chances on, such as the old 4ft long lumberjack tree saw I saw once. When I moved, I took close to 200 books of all sizes to that same Bookman's, knowing full well they would only take a few of them. And I was right but they took a lot more than I thought they would. Donated the rest to a used book collection receptacle. And I don't expect a lot in cash. Take the more generous store credit which is good at all locations. You're not going to make much money unless you sell your stuff at a swap meet and there's plenty of those around. So, that's my take on Bookman's for whatever it's worth. If it's worthless, no harm no foul. Thanks Bookman's for keeping on keeping on!
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)