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One of the issues Borderlands talked about when they first started the sponsorship program was that each book they sold had the price printed on the book cover (printed by the publisher), so they were unable to raise prices when wages increased. I suppose you could just put a new pricetag over the old one but it's so easy for someone to open up amazon's app and check prices online that it wouldn't make much difference.

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Amazon already sells books for below the cover price (often, at least) so it's already the case that people buy from brick and mortar because of something other than price.

This is one of the major issues with selling books, I hear. There's very little profit margin on the books themselves, so most stores have to make up the difference with higher-margin items like a coffee shop, swag, etc.

On the bright side, there's little risk involved, since you're generally allowed to ship back any unsold books (or just their covers) for a full refund.

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