book price
By ET
In our university book store, I can find pretty much everything I want to find.
The shelf space is limited, so sometimes all books are not put on the shelf. I was looking for two books:
1. Statistical Inference by Casella and Berger, and
2. Discrete choice methods with simulation by Ken Train
The first book sells for more than US$100 in the US, but only sells for HK$100 here (exchange rate: 1USD=7.8HKD).
The second book sells for US$25 in the US, but sells for HK$400 here.
Maybe the first book is a graduate course text book here, so it has quantity discount, but we all know text book demand is inelastic (meaning demand does not respond too much to changes in price), and quantity discount can not justify this huge difference. I haven’t tried to get price quote for other books, but this is interesting.
December 5th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
I had same experience in U.S.
I once bought a book for accounting. The price in U.S. market is $120, but in Asia is 30 something. Those books are totally same. The only reason is the cheaper one was driectly from the factory in Asia. Pay attention to these international edtion books. They are pretty cheap and have good quality as well.
December 1st, 2006 at 2:23 am
my advice: talk to the people in the bookstore, online shopping here in HK is in its infancy
There are amazingly many bookstores, though. Many are called “Second Floor Book Stores” around Causeway Bay and Wanchai as they can’t afford the first-floor store front. Compared with US book stores, they are more exciting with different holdings and thus more surprises.
November 30th, 2006 at 11:35 am
I’ve noticed the same. Do you know of any discount on-line bookstores in Hong Kong?