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How the Coop Stacks Up
COMPARATIVE SHOPPING
The Coop will be open extra hours this week, and officials have instructed their employees to be extra-courteous to customers. In addition, the Mass Ave. establishment will offer its usual conveniences--a department-store layout and a generous credit system, not to mention the rebate a few months down the road. The combination, as always, will draw large throngs of Harvard undergraduates preparing to plunge into second semester.
This semi-annual shopping ritual always provokes a string of questions from student shoppers. How much of the Coop's merchandise is available elsewhere in the numerous smaller shops in the Square? How do Coop prices compare with those of other retailers?
This weekend, a team of Crimson reporters went to the Coop and some of its nearby competitors, and compiled comparative prices in four general categories: books, records, and office and drugstore supplies. What follows are the general findings from our excursions, Keep in mind that the Coop sends its members an annual rebate--last year's was 9.7 percent. In other words, when list-prices are the same at the Coop and another store, members get a better deal at the Coop.
Course Books
"Everyone who goes to college thinks textbooks are priced too high," says James Argeros, the Coop's general manager. But he insists that prices are set by the manufacturers, not the retailers. Argeros cites the store's policy (posted in the textbook section, on the third floor of the back building) of selling texts at list price. He also notes that in a recent study conducted by the store's board of directors, Coop book prices were comparable with, if not slightly lower than, eight other Ivy and area colleges.
The Coop's adherence to this pricing policy, combined with the annual rebate, means "we lose money on books." Argeros adds.
Selecting about 100 books from 21 popular classes, our reporters found that the Coop almost always charges the price listed in Books in Print, an annual publisher's guide. Searching the shelves of other major bookstores in the Square--Harvard Book Store on the corner of Mass. Ave. and Plympton St., Paperback Booksmith on Brattle St., WordsWorth on the corner of Brattle and Mt. Auburn, and the WordsWorth 2 discount outlet down Mass. Ave. toward Central Square--we found that, in almost all cases, the Coop is the only supplier of textbooks in the area.
That means that for classes which require only textbooks, such as most natural science courses, comparative shopping is not worth the effort. But courses in the social sciences and the humanities often require general trade books in literature, political science and history, and many are sold in at least one of the other four stores.
In the social sciences, the stores most competitive with the Coop's near-comprehensive supply are Harvard Book Store, where we found about half the books we were looking for, and WordsWorth, which stocked about one-third. In literature, those two, as well as Paperback Booksmith, had about one-quarter of the editions we sought.
Both Harvard Book Store and Paperback Booksmith follow the same pricing policy as the Coop: they sell at list price. But the two WordsWorth shops offer significant discounts. The Harvard Square outlet gives 10 percent off on paperbacks and 15 percent off on non-textbook hardcovers. The Central Square branch, which sells mostly publishers' overstock, gives a 50 percent discount on all prices.
At a number of stores, we noticed a tradeoff between selection and price. For example, Paperback Booksmith carries 10 of the 13 books required for Literature and Arts A-19 "Fiction, Ideology, and Myth: The Novel in the Twentieth Century," but sells nine of them at the same price as the Coop, and one for a dollar more. WordsWorth 2 has only two of the 13 works--The Counterfeiters by Andre' Gide, and The Castle by Franz Kafka--but undersells the Coop by a combined total of $7 for the pair.
Another option open to price-conscious students is to search for used books. Several stores carry second-hand texts, including the Coop itself, which buys books being used in the current semester from students at 50 percent of the original price. Harvard Book Store sells used editions at a 25 percent discount and the Starr Book Shop on Bow St. sells books at 40 to 60 percent off. The selection is limited in all three cases, but Harvard Book Store offers a good supply of Penguin Books, and the Starr carries a wide selection of "classic scholarly books in all fields," according to one salesman.
salesman.
Harvard Student Agencies, which used to offer the Square's most comprehensive selection of used Harvard course-books, has discontinued the service, although it may start up again, says Louis J. Morseberger '85, the agencies' direct sales manager.
For records, the Coop unquestionably offers the best value. We priced Rolling Stone magazine's top-ten new releases at Kennedy St. shops Discount Records and Strawberries, as well as at the Coop. Nine of the 10 albums were cheapest at the Coop. In addition, of the nine available at Discount Records, seven were more expensive than at Strawberries and the Coop.
Most Coop record prices range from $5.49 to $6.89. At Strawberries the cost is between $6.29 and $7.49 for comparable albums. Discount Records has a wide range--between $5.49 and $7.99--but most of the top-ten cost $7.49.
Argeros says that the Coop takes a substantial loss on record sales, explaining that the Coop uses that department as a loss-leader to "bring traffic into the store."
Strawberries also cuts from the list price, says clerk Simon Schaffner, adding that its higher prices are attributable to its higher overhead.
Dennis MacDonald, the assistant manager at Discount Records, says his store sells at full price because it recently had a storewide sale at 20 percent off. He added that, while the top 10 may have relatively high prices at Discount Records, the store usually offers about 20 new releases for $5.99.
Drugstore and Office Supplies
We compared the Coop with three other stores in drugstore and office supplies: Rix on Kennedy St. and CVS Pharmacy and Store 24 on Mass. Ave. In general, Rix and CVS appear to undersell their competitors across the board. On name brands in toiletries, they shave a few cents off their price--one pint of Flex Shampoo, for example, costs $2.58 at the Coop and $3.30 at Store 24, while selling for $2.47 and $2.49 at Rix and CVS respectively. Furthermore, in many cases Rix and CVS offer their own varieties. The comparable Rix brand shampoo costs $1.77, the CVS brand sells for $1.57.
One notable exception, however, is a 49 oz. box of Tide detergent, which costs $2.09 at the Coop, but sells for 15 cents more at Rix. and 50 cents more at CVS.
Coop General Manager Argeros acknowledges that the Coop does sell drugstore supplies higher than some of the other stores, but he points to a difference in purchasing strategies: "When you buy a carload of toothpaste chances are that it will be cheaper than if you buy 48 tubes."
Another common source of supplies for students is the HSA candystore in the Freshman Union. Like Store 24, this shop draws customers on the basis of convenience and charges prices well above the competition. However, Peter J. Quartararo '83, the HSA shop manager, maintains that his organization does not make large profits, but has to pay more to wholesalers because it orders in such small quantities.
While the Coop, CVS, Rix and Store 24 all carry similar supplies of toiletries, their selections differ in office supplies. The Coop, in general, offers greater variety than its competitors, although Bob Slate on Mass. Ave. also sells a wide range of stationery items. In round-ring notebook binders, for example, the Coop sells 12 different types, with varying ring size and binding material. Bob Slate sells 10, while none of the other stores sell more than two.
However, where stock overlaps, CVS and Rix usually undercut their competitors. All the stores we visited sell 100-sheet packages of regular-lined filler paper. At Rix, you can buy it for 99 cents; at CVS it costs $1.33. The Coop, Store 24 and Bob Slate sell it for $1.45, $1.65, and $1.98 respectively.
Meredity E. Greene, Thomas H. Howlett, Heidi M. James, Charies T. Kurzman, Diane M. Cardwell, and Jacob M. Schiesinger compiled this report.
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