Time to go Shopping: How Coupons Help
Warning: 1: This is a long article, and not for those with apparently short attention spans.
2: This article showcases hardcore book-lust, and describes deeds that may not be suitable for those of with milder hearts. Parental, matrimonial, and companion discretion preferred.
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| Image Courtesy: Google |
With the arrival of online-stores, books
have been available in amazingly cheap prices. In the past, I was a frequent
visitor to bookstores in Kannur area, to the point that the owners of those
posh bookstores started nodding at me when they see me, with a smile. Those
smiles were precious for me. I will get into the reason in a short while.
Before that let me recount the ways I pursued in order to satiate my addiction
to books.
The desire to buy and own a book kept
growing in me. By the time I was in the middle of the year in the twelfth
class, I took it up as a mission. When I was in twelfth standard, I studied in
a school situated on the shore of NH17 connecting Kannur and Kasargodu. During
those days, lunch cost me Rs: 10. I was reluctant to take lunch packed from
home. Mostly girls brought lunch and that was a reason why I did not. All the
cool dudes in the class either ate from the nearby restaurant or went their
homes, because most of their homes were close by, except about ten students’.
Asking money for books was a taboo topic at
home, although my parents preferred reading as a better form of growing up than
just playing in the ground with some nasty kids, from the neighborhood. Money,
my parents thought, is precious and should not be wasted on books, especially
stories or novels. Contradictions surpass reality, here. My parents bought me
comic books in ample numbers even though the above-mentioned prohibition was
still in full imposition.
I decided not to bring such a topic to the
attention of my parents. The book I desperately wanted to buy was a novel by
one of the most elegant of Malayalam writers, Vaikkom Muhammad Basheer. My Granddad had an Elephant (the
Malayalam version, of course) lured me from the pale and grey pages of a
regular bulletin published by one of the prominent publishing companies in
Kerala. I succumbed to the call from my inner being. There should be a way to
meet the financial need, on this issue. I finally settled in compromising my
lunch.
Five days of no-lunch provided me Rs: 50,
enough to take a bus to Kannur and buy the book. Then one day, after classes,
it happened. There was a small bookstore near the old bus stand in Kannur,
those days. There the bookseller was an old man. I asked for the book and he
went behind some shelves. When he emerged, he had a copy of the book I wanted.
When I got a job, after post-graduation, I
resumed this practice of buying books. E-stores were catching up slowly. They
had astonishing discounts that made me regret buying some of the books from
bookstores. In those bookstores, where I was a regular, the smile of the owner
meant I could ask for a discount. A regular customer should get some
consideration after all, shouldn’t he?
Those arrogant owners, however, considered
five to ten percent discounts as the best shot they could give. If a book
coasts Rs. 499, I would have to pay Rs. 450. In an online store, however, in
2010, you could have earned a pretty 50 percent discount on some books.
Gradually, this shift to online shopping caused my regular visit to the two
prominent bookshops in Kannur to slow down. Still, I did not abandon the
used-books’ markets. There is a gentle person named Habib, who sells used-books
near the old bus stand area, in Kannur. I am a regular customer with him,
whenever he opens his shop. His is not exactly a shop in the strict sense. He
spreads a tarpaulin sheet under a tree near the over bridge and sells books
there. He does not open on every day, though.
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| Damn! Don't you still know? It is my book |
Online bookstores, however, were more
reliable and cheap. The situation has started changing gradually, now. The same
online shop I used to be a devoted customer of, when the boom began, now, sells
books with no discount at all. This website has become unattractive, for those
who are interested in books, especially. At the same time, as a light of promise,
a number of other online stores opened in India. Most of them are better than
the one I just alluded to.
As a herd of online stored has arrived on
the scene, often, one better than the other, comparing prices is a very
impressive option through which one can pitch impressive deals. MySmartprice.Com,
the people who have been sponsoring my book reviews, is a wonderful place where
you can find better deals by comparing prices. Out of the many price comparing
websites, I like MySmartprice.Com because of their efficient guidelines and
effective service.
Well, I actually missed something. Out of
all other shopping experiences, I did not try discount coupons. My ignorance of
how they function was the main cause behind this lag. Recently, a friend of
mine informed me how to use them. You just need to go to a coupon store online
and click on the coupon. The next step is the coupon code. Once you click on
the coupon, a window will pop up and will give you a code, which you need to
write down or copy with your mouse. Then go to the website and do the purchase.
Once the payment section comes, there will be a small box somewhere down the
page, which asks for discount codes. Type the coupon code, you grabbed inside
that box.
When online shopping sites, shorten their
discount bars, coupons are a relief in satiating your hunger for books. Recently,
Amazon.com launched their shop in India, named amazon.in. The good news is that
you can shop Wall of Colours and Other Stories anywhere from India, through amazon’s kindle store in amazon.in.
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