The Black Sheep
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Volume 22, Issue 11 • 4/3/13 - 4/10/13
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Follett’s Bookstore in Trouble Raises Price of Average Book to $10,000 benny boy wrote this For the past few years, Follett’s bookstore, a longtime staple of Green Street shopping, has been going through a rough patch. In 2010, Follett’s responded to a decline in book sales by removing the textbooks from their shelves in order to exclusively sell spirit wear apparel, which is the equivalent of a grocery store removing food from its shelves in order to focus on Reader’s Digest subscriptions. “At the time it seemed like a good idea,” Follett’s representative Steve W. Said. “For years we were unable to keep up with textbook sales over at the Illini Union Bookstore, so we decided to just go into our own market and sell Illinois apparel. It was a stressful bi-weekly meeting when it was brought up that the Illini Union Bookstore also sells Illinois apparel. Needless to say, when the shelf space that used to house a $250 book held a couple $2 key chains, we began hemorrhaging money.” With nothing else to do, executives at Follett’s decided that the only thing to be done was to close up shop. The store was scheduled to close in early May of this year, that is, until a solution came from an unlikely source. “It just came to me one night,” cashier Robbie K. said. “Why don’t we start selling college textbooks again, but then make them super expensive? It was so simple, yet so perfect. There’s always a few rich, lazy college kids who refuse to buy textbooks at the beginning of the semester. If we want to stay in business, let’s just cater to them. Let’s make them unnecessarily pricey. Like, outrageously expensive. I honestly don’t see how this could be a bad business decision. Right then and there I took the pistol out of my mouth and called up the floor manager.” After crunching some numbers, Follett’s announced that they would need to be selling books for $10,000 to $250,000. “That was the number which we decided would make us satisfied here at Follett’s. I know it might sound expensive for books, but I don’t really see what choice the students have anyway. Are they gonna buy their books online? Yeah right, have fun paying those shipping fees!” The Illini Union Bookstore has responded to this business move by raising their prices, and making a few other changes as well. Starting next year, visitors to the IUB will have to pay a cover
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charge for entering the store. “We’re thinking like 20 bucks or something. That wouldn’t be for everyone, we’ll generally let any Engineering Majors or people with glasses get in for free. Hey, if you don’t like it, good luck getting books for class,” Bouncer Mike S. was quoted as saying. Student reaction to this news has been largely negative. However, students have since resigned to the fact that they have
what'’s inside
Sex and the CU: The Notorious Number Coming to terms with your long list of bad decisions.
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no choice but to spend such outrageous prices for college textbooks. “Yeah, it definitely hits the wallet pretty hard. But what are you gonna do, you know?” Sophomore James K. Said. “I was thinking about just buying my books on Amazon, but my free Amazon Prime ran out and I felt that it would be mean to Follett’s to buy books somewhere else. I just sucked it up and sold my car when my professor wanted us to read Much Ado About Nothing.”
continued on page 19
The Black Sheep Forecast Or, how Mother Nature is warning us that the end is nigh.
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