Readers unmoved by refund pledge

THE STAFF of Books etc were in no danger of being trampled underfoot by customers demanding their money back yesterday, writes Will Bennett.

The management had been confident that that was how it would be. They also knew the publicity surrounding the offer to refund customers who find their purchases dull or unreadable would be worth its weight in gold to a small company.

The offer promises any customer who finds that a book which they thought they would enjoy has merely cured their insomnia can claim a full refund within four weeks of purchase. The receipt must be produced and the book must be in saleable condition.

Nobody in the trade has made an across-the-board offer like this before. Richard Joseph, managing director, said yesterday: 'We want the public to be a little more adventurous about their reading. People often don't know what they are going to get for their money.'

Books etc has twice done limited swap offers. For Love In A Time Of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, only seven copies out of 3,000 sold were returned and three out of 1,500 copies sold of a thriller by Robert Goddard.

Any refunds will be more than compensated for by the publicity for Books etc, which was founded in 1981 and now has 10 branches in London. The company runs a clever marketing operation - last year it opened at midnight to sell Sex, a book of nude photographs of Madonna, embargoed until that moment. Her fans arrived in force, as did the media. Its profit last year was nearly pounds 1m on a turnover of pounds 14m.

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