Canadian booksellers have their shorts in a knot because Amazon.com wants to build a warehouse and distribution centre here.

Although this is being painted as David and Goliath battle between big bad corporate Amazon and the poor little Mom and Pop independent bookstores, I have to think that the real push to halt Amazon is coming from Chapters\Indigo.

You know, the company that pre-Amazon decimated local bookstores?

If you buy books you’re likely a little confused right now because Amazon.ca has been selling books in Canada for years.  As did Amazon.com before it.

What Amazon wasn’t allowed to do was actually warehouse and distribute books from within Canada.  Everything that they sold us was shipped from the US via Canada Post.

Of course that didn’t prevent them from offering .ca customers better selection than Ch’Indigo, better prices than Ch’Indigo, and faster delivery than Ch’Indigo.  You see, because of their near monopoly in Canada, Ch’Indigo just didn’t give a damn.

So I’m rooting for Amazon.com!  I want to give them even more of my business!

And those independent bookstores?  I’m all for Mom, Apple Pie, and the local bookstore, but realistically most of them are an anachronism. Unless a store can find a very specific niche it just doesn’t make sense to try to keep them all in business.

Yes they’re friendly, yes they’re quaint, and yes they can be pleasant to browse, but really the small general interest bookstore is about as relevant as the record stores that have all but disappeared, the neighbourhood groceries that are gone, and filling stations with people to pump your gas.

Instead of worrying about how to keep a dying retail sector alive, let’s put our money into publishers of books and magazines – the people who really keep our writers alive.

Further to my quest to find out why I was overcharged by Chapters/Indigo. herewith is today’s correspondence.

My Indigo contact, Ms. Lynn 25210, now tells me that Indigo – Canada’s largest book retailer – doesn’t actually have an e-mail address for Putnam Publishing – a branch of the largest book publisher on the planet.

Really, I don’t make this stuff up.  Or this:

Canadian publishers incur costs that are unique to Canada. Therefore, there would not be a 25% mark up on the book.

Go ahead, read it twice – it still doesn’t make sense.

Here’s today’s exchange:

Dear Barry Rueger,

Thank you for contacting Chapters Indigo Online regarding the price of Canadian books.

Canadian publishers incur costs that are unique to Canada. Therefore, there would not be a 25% mark up on the book.

Unfortunately, we do not have the e-mail address for Putnam Publishing, and, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

We apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced. If you require any additional assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Thank you for choosing Chapters Indigo Online. Books, Music, Movies and More.

Sincerely,

Lynn 25210
Customer Service Team
Chapters Indigo Online
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca

I replied:

Hi Lynn,

“Canadian publishers incur costs that are unique to Canada. Therefore, there would not be a 25% mark up on the book.”

I’m not sure those two sentences makes sense.  First of all, the book in question was  printed in the US.  Aside from some marginal border costs what additional expenses would the Canadian distributor/publisher face that would not also be faced by American publishers?

Second, there certainly is a 25% markup on the book – the Canadian price is 25% higher than the US price.

Into whose pocket does that money flow?

Thanks once again.  Perhaps one of your superiors can provide the contact e-mail for Putnam Publishing?  You do business with them, so obviously have that information at hand.

Barry

Remember yesterday? When I wrote to Chapters/Indigo asking why we Canadians are forced to pay 25% more for books than someone in the US?

A nice lady called Lynn 25210 responded with many excuses, but basically blames the publisher, then directs me to the Canadian Booksellers Association.

Dear Barry Rueger,

Thank you for contacting Chapters Indigo Online with your request for information on book prices.

We appreciate and understand your concern regarding the variance in Canadian vs. U.S. pricing.

To provide you with some insight into this, as it relates to our business, the publishers assign the Canadian retail price for books and magazines at the time of printing, not the retailers, like Chapters Indigo. With books this happens at least six months before a title arrives in our warehouse or our stores. Subsequent fluctuations in the value of the Canadian dollar are not reflected. We do apologize for any inconvenience experienced.

As the price is printed directly on the book jacket, publishers typically make price adjustments only when the book is reprinted, and reprint cycles vary greatly between books and publishers.

Canadian publishers incur costs that are unique to Canada and as such keeping prices in line with the U.S. is difficult.

What is Indigo Books & Music Inc. doing about it?

* We are working diligently with publishers to continue to monitor and drive lower prices on upcoming releases which are already being reflected in lower book prices. For example a new book that retailed for $35 six months ago will now cost about $30.

* We have increased and will continue to increase, the number of promotional discounts on books in our stores to reduce the price of books for our customers.

* We are continuing to monitor the fluctuating Canadian dollar so that a fair and equitable long term solution can be put in place.

* We have begun to provide a greater discount for some items to coincide with the price parity between Canadian and US dollars.

We remain as committed as ever to the long term sustainability of the Canadian book industry which is in the best interest of our customers, employees, authors and the Canadian public. Thank you for continuing to shop Canadian.

* Finally, under no circumstances do we benefit from the price differences.

As this is an industry wide issue we encourage you to provide feedback as well to:

Canadian Booksellers Association

789 Don Mills Rd., #700

Toronto, ON M3C 1T5
Tel: (416) 467-7883
Fax: (416) 467-7886
Toll free: 1-866-788-0790

We apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced. If you require any additional assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Thank you for choosing Chapters Indigo Online. Books, Music, Movies and More.

Sincerely,

Lynn 25210
Customer Service Team
Chapters Indigo Online
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca

Does this mean that Chapters/Indigo accepts no responsibility for this rip-off?  Seems likely. In any case I wrote back to Ms. 25210:

Hello Lynn, you wrote:

“the publishers assign the Canadian retail price for books and magazines at the time of printing, not the retailers”

So, just to be clear, are you saying that it is the Publisher who pockets the 25% Canadian markup on the book that I bought?

If so can you provide an e-mail contact for Putnam, who are listed as the publisher for “Juliet, Naked?”

Thanks, Barry

And, just for fun, I also e-mailed Susan Dayus, Executive Director of the CBA.

The US Dollar and Canadian Dollar are once again at par, or at least very close.  So why are Canadians once again being robbed blind when we buy books?

I decided to ask. I e-mailed Canada’s bookselling behemoth with my query. Chapters/Indigo’s website promises “We’ll respond within 24 hours.”

Please explain how once again Canadian prices in your retail stores are so incredibly higher than the US prices listed on products. I purchased Nick Hornby’s new book “Juliet, Naked” last week, and was less than happy to see that the old trick of overcharging Canadians had returned.

$25.95 US vs $32.50 Canadian? That’s a whopping 25% mark up, at a time when the two dollars are within pennies of each other.

Last year when the dollar peaked and was at par with the US buck you folks actually backed down and charged the US price printed on books. I didn’t notice when that practice disappeared, but assume that it was as fast as humanly possible.

So, please offer me a plausible explanation why I should pay so much more for a book bought in Canada than an American would – a book printed in the US, and which presumably costs Indigo/Chapters almost the same amount as a US bookseller would pay.

I’ll keep you posted.

PS – based on the first two pages alone, I’d say that Hornby’s new book is one that you really should read. Just make sure to buy it on-line from Amazon and save yourself a lot of money.

Why I prefer Amazon.com over Indigo?  The usual reason – American companies give better value, and their web site is a lot easier to use.

Here’s Indigo’s shipping prices for ONE BOOK – $7.48

See Details on Premium Shipping & Handling

• Premium Shipping offers 2-4 day delivery service, costs $4.99 per order, plus $2.49 per item and is available for any order delivered in Canada.

Here’s Amazon’s shipping prices for ONE BOOK - $5.90

So, why does Indigo charge a buck and half more?  I don’t know, same reason they charge $25 to join their “rewards” program I guess.

In the days of my youth any product from the U.S. – which was most things, except stuff like shoes, appliances and televisions that we actually made here – was advertised as having an American price, and a slightly higher Canadian one.

That’s mostly a thing of the past, except when shopping for pet supplies from  a company called JCMCD Enterprises who go so far as to display the following on their web site:

Hmmm… that telus.net e-mail address would seem to suggest that this might be a Canadian company!

Yup – JCMCD Enterprises’ address is:

JCMCD Enterprises
412 Cantrell pl sw
Calgary,  Alberta  t2w 2a4

OK, I’ll bite – how come it costs more to ship from Calgary to Calgary than it does to ship from Calgary to the States? I think I’ll write and ask!

Oh yeah. Another of JCMCD’s fine products -the Fart N Phone – is out of stock.

Question: what do you do when one of your employees shows up drunk and ruins the bar mitzvah for a family renting your facility?

Apologize? Offer a refund? Hah!

No, you accuse them of not being Jewish!

The full story is here.

The janitor, who was in charge of the cultural centre in the West Island community of Pierrefonds, was drunk when the 350 guests arrived for the Neumann bar mitzvah, court heard.

The Neumanns said they asked the city for an apology. Instead, they got a 40-page defence statement that, among other things, accused them of lying about being Jewish.

At least a couple of people really should be fired for this, not for their complete and utter lack of customer service, but because of their complete and utter lack of intelligence.

Two services that actually deliver what they promise, and at prices that are really reasonable — Jott and FreeConference.com.

FreeConference.com is a service that I’ve been using for a couple of years. They provide conference call services.

If you have to get ten people together on the phone you log in to FreeConference, add the names and e-mail addresses for the people involved, and the system sets it all up. Each person gets an e-mail invitation with the details, and at the time of the call they just phone the number, enter the 5 digit access code, and everyone is logged in.

It just works, and aside from the long distance call to Ohio it’s all free.

Lately we’ve been using their premium services, which gives you an 800 number, and lets you have the call recorded into a downloadable MP3 file. A one hour call with five people costs about $25.00.

Jott.com is simpler, and free right now. Once you have registered your phone number or cel number with Jott you can use it to e-mail yourself short notes.

1. Dial the Jott phone number (I do this from my cel)
2. Speak up to thirty seconds
3. Hang up.

Jott transcribes the message into text and e-mails it to me in a couple of minutes.

The only limitation is that Bell caller ID doesn’t make it through their 800 service, so I need to call the non-toll free Canadian number instead.

Went today to the Simply Accounting website, a division of a company called Sage, who are perhaps best known for AccPac, another accounting package.

I found Simply Accounting, and was about to price it for a group with which I work. The fastest way to do that was to click on the “Buy Online” button which appears on every page.

Except that the page that opens in Firefox, on the Mac and the PC, is empty.

Usually my next step would be to e-mail them telling them that the web site is broken.

Except that there appears to be no place on the site that lists any sort of e-mail address, even for the web master. None whatsoever.

So, do I really want to spend a half hour calling an 800 number and navigating though voice menus? Or will I just go check out their competitor Quickbooks?

Once again the City of Hamilton’s myhamilton.ca web site proves useless.

I wanted to find out where I could vote in the upcoming municipal election.

I went here to the page labeled “Voting Locations”

1. I chose “Hamilton” as my community from the drop down menu.

2. I entered “325″ and “James Street South” in the boxes labeled “Street Number” and “Street Name”.

Result:

No properties were found matching your search criteria.
Check that you have entered the information correctly.

I then figured out that the box labeled “Street Number” didn’t mean the street number of my address, but the digits of a numbered street, such as “12th Avenue”

That is very unclear, and unlike any set of address entry fields that I have encountered.

So I deleted “325″ and searched on just “James Street South”. The result:

No properties were found matching your search criteria.
Check that you have entered the information correctly.

I then went to the “Search Tips” page and based on what was there tried “James St. S”. Result:

No properties were found matching your search criteria.
Check that you have entered the information correctly.

I then eliminated the “.” after “St” and tried “James St S”.

FINALLY! A result!

This is really horrible useless design. Seriously, I can’t imagine why anyone would set this up in this manner. The chances of someone guessing the right formatting on the first try are almost zero.

What’s worse is that the included instructions aren’t accurate.

On the original search page it says:

“Street name can be the full street name (e.g. King St W) or partial street name (e.g. King). Street name must be at least 3 characters.”

That is not even close to describing how specifically a search item must be formatted. It is terribly misleading. A “full street name” would be “James Street South,” not one with abbreviations.

There is no excuse for such bad design. It’s obvious that this wasn’t even tested on real users.

Then again, the leading mayoral candidate has just been convicted of accepting illegal election campaign contributions during the last election.

True story, according to the eighth person that I talked to at Cogeco.

The amount of money that was debited from my bank account on September 15th…

Was actually the payment that my cable bill showed as having been paid on August 14th…

And was actually the payment for cable service in the month of July…

They can’t understand why I was confused.

Found via marktd.

Ursula the wonderpup has moved back to Hamilton. Accordingly she needs a licence. Given the ferocity of Hamilton Bylaw Officers this is essential.

How hard can this be?

1) Go to Hamilton City Hall. Ask at the front desk “Where can I buy a dog licence?” “Third floor.”

Go to the third floor. Choose between the counter at the left, for building permits, and the one on the right, with a sign that says “Licences”. Note a second sign thats says “You can now buy your Dog Licence here.”

Step up to the counter, joining three other people. After three or four minutes realize that we are being ignored by everyone on the other side, and that it is unlikely that they will bother with mere mortals like us.

Say “To Hell with This” and leave.

2) Go to the City of Hamilton website myhamilton.ca. Experience sense of dread and foreboding. In less than a year this site has become synonymous with bad web design and user unfriendliness. Nothing is easy at myhamilton.ca. Seriously, finding a bus schedule is hard at myhamilton.ca. Finding the Mayor’s phone number is hard at myhamilton.ca

Front page has a link “Renew or Buy a New Dog Licence”. Cool! How modern! Click link. Instead of taking me to the place where I can buy a dog licence, it takes me to the general dog licence page where I scroll half way down, below the fold, to the following:

Animal Licensing
Dog Licences, Cat Registrations, Vietnemese Pot-bellied Pig Licences.

Conveniently purchase your dog licence from the comfort of home!
Buy a new dog licence or renew your existing dog licence on line.
Remember to create or login to your portal account before you begin.

Please Note:
If you apply for a discounted licence rate, you may begin an application on-line, however you will be required to send the necessary documentation before Animal Licensing Staff will mail you the Dog Tag and Certificate.

(Hamilton licences Pot-Bellied pigs?? Who knew?)

Clicked the link to “Buy a new dog licence.”

BRAAP! No entry! Must first register with website! OK, fill in another form, receive the e-mail, go back, log in, then go once again to the buy a dog licence page.

Go to page, fill in dog details (Golden Lab, spayed, female, rabies shots up to date).

Fill in my contact info and mailing address (one of those stunningly annoying forms where “James”, “Street”, “South” and “Unit Number” each need to go into a separate field) . Click Next.

BRAAP!

No address matching the values you entered could be found.
Please hit “Back” on your browser and check the address.

Needless to say the address is quite exactly right.

3) Give up. Phone City Hall. Wait on Hold. Talk to one guy who tells me to go to the parking ticket office across the street from City Hall to buy the licence. Tell him that I was directed to the Third Floor. He laughs quietly.

I am transferred to the Animal Control people. I wait on Hold.

Once again I’m told to go one place or the other. I say that I have tried that and it didn’t work. I ask to do this over the phone. Halfway though the process I am told that I will still need to mail or fax Ursula’s vet papers to City Hall before the licence can be issued.

I am flabbergasted. We finally figure out how to renew her on her old expired licence.

Out of curiosity I go back to the myhamilton.ca website and enter a fake address instead of my real one. Find the following:

Before we can process your Dog Licence Application and mail your dog tag to you, we require proof of the above to be sent to our office either;

* By Mail …..
* In Person to Animal Control at…
* By Fax to…

Your total price: $27.50
2006 HAMILTON DOG TAG: $26.00
Service Fee: $1.50

Lo and behold, You cannot buy a dog licence on-line, you can only half buy one, but still need to mail, fax, or deliver the papers to City Hall.

Which of course completely negates the convenience of on-line registration.

And, adding insult to injury, they will nail you a buck and half “Service Fee” for the privilege of attempting to buy a dog licence on-line.

Seth Godin sums things up nicely with a short take on a company that figures that losing $4 is enough reason to alienate a loyal customer. What Seth doesn’t note is that many companies these days simply don’t give a damn about customers or retaining them.

Primus: Still harrassing me for the cel phone cancellation of $200 bucks for a phone that mostly never worked. Dream on idiots.

Horizon Utilities (formerly Hamilton Hydro until Mike Harris “fixed” our utilities by privatizing half of them) – wants me to pay the electric bill for an apartment that I moved out of in mid December. I of course called them to let them know that I was moving, they say they have no record of that call. They insisted that the only way that I was off the hook was to have my former landlord call them to tell them that yes I had moved. He did that, and told them the name of the new tenant, but still they refuse to move.

My word against theirs. Will I give them another penny? Not on your life!

I can’t claim to have an MBA, but I still believe that certain things are self evident.

Happy customers bring you more business.

Word of mouth is the best advertising.

It’s cheaper to maintain an existing customer than it is to find a new one.

Sometimes you just need to admit that you made a mistake.

Sadly I can count on the thumbs of one hand the number of companies that believe these things. One of them is Magma Communications in Ottawa.

I’ve relied on Magma for many years for my web hosting, e-mail, dial-up, and DSL service. They’re far from the cheapest, but their service is second to none.

In particular you can call them any time of the day or night and talk to a real live technical support person who a) seems to care about helping you, b) really knows what he or she is talking about, and c) solves problems quickly.

No thirty minutes on “hold”. No blaming other companies. No evasion. And certainly no attempt to blame the customer or to insult them.

Amazing for a company that’s owned by Primus Canada.

Consequently I was gobsmacked this month when I found myself without DSL access for two weeks.

I had arrived home from Seattle, and couldn’t get a connection.

I tried the usual things – resetting hardware, changing cables, testing and checking passwords, all to no avail. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t at my end.

I called Magma support. They picked up on the second ring, and after double checking the really obvious user errors ran a quick check for line sync.

Four minutes into the call they surmised that probably the problem was with Bell Canada and that they would open a support ticket with them.

Here’s the important part of the story.

Even though Magma, Primus, Sprint, and a dozen other companies will sell you DSL service, what they’re really doing is reselling Bell service. Or, if I understand correctly, the services provided by another BCE company, Nexxia. Even Bell Sympatico buys DSL from Nexxia.

As noted previously, BCE lacks even the slightest interest in customer service, especially in products for which they hold a monopoly. Apparently this disdain for customers extends to some reasonably large ones like Magma.

Troubleshooting a DSL connection problem at Magma goes something like this.

a) Customer phones Magma Support

b) Magma tech does some basic troubleshooting and checks the line sync quality.

c) If that doesn’t do it the Tech will issue a repair ticket to Bell Nexxia.

Time elapsed: 8-10 minutes

d) Bell Nexxia refuses to look at the repair tickets for a minimum of two, and probably three or more days. During that time no-one, not the end user, not Magma, is allowed to contact Bell to see if anything is happening.

e) Bell fixes something

f) Bell phones end user to tell them that they fixed something.

g) Bell does not phone Magma to tell them the same thing.

h) Bell closes ticket ’cause they’ve surely fixed it.

i) Magma and end user wait two more days until Bell officially tells Magma what they did.

j) DSL still doesn’t work. Magma submits another repair ticket to Bell Nexxia

k) Go to Step d)

In other words, the actual time spent troubleshooting and fixing problems is minutes. The time spent waiting for Bell to get off their ass and address issues is calculated in days.

At the end of two weeks I fired off a scorching letter to Magma. At the same time I received a replacement modem.

When this immediately solved the problem I dropped them a note expressing my pissed offedness at the fact that I had suggested a modem problem a week earlier and had been ignored.

Now, the amazing part:

A call from someone higher up the Magma food chain who apologized (as had a number of people), who acknowledged that the problem had not been well handled, and who tells me that they are actually changing their policies based on my experience so that it will be possible to swap in a new modem early on in the process instead of only after two weeks of Bell hell.

Yes, they listen to customers and take them seriously.

Sadly I told him, I had already called Cogeco cable to order up cable modem service. I simply couldn’t risk another two week outage. He said that he could understand that.

I promised to mail both modems back to them as soon as the new service was in place.

I had called Cogeco a day or two earlier to have cable modem service installed.

The cogeco phone drone booked a day, and time, and I sat through the ten minute recorded EULA. I found it bizarre that they demanded cash or a cheque at the time of install. Since I already subscribe to Cogeco cable that seemed rather stupid.

Well, this morning came and went with no installer. At an hour after the agreed upon window I phoned them.

After trying to tell me that I hadn’t booked an install, and (I swear) asking if I was sure that I had phoned Cogeco and not someone else, they “found” a record of the call, but no sign of the install order.

The phone drone offered no suggestions, made no attempt to solve the problem, just a dull “huh…” response that suggests that this sort of thing is the norm at Cogeco.

I told them thanks, but no thanks. I’m outa here.

And as of this moment, I’m still using DSL provided by Magma Communications.