I don’t buy many paper books these days. However, for some really great ones, I do. And I get those in hardcover if I can. So today there is one that I want. Just came out today, too. I went on Amazon and it is available there for $10 off the hardcover price at Barnes & Noble. WHOA!
This comes with free 2-day shipping since I have Amazon Prime. Basically a no-brainer on its own. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! For an extra $5 I can get delivery tomorrow, on a SATURDAY! Didn’t working weekends used to be time-and-a-half wages for a lot of businesses? I don’t know how they can afford this because I can’t even ship a pack of raisins with Fedex for only five bucks, much less a heavy hardback book.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! For just $1 more, I can get it delivered TODAY. I don’t even know how that is possible as I’m still saving $4 off of the retail price and, presumably, a surly delivery dude or dudette is going to have to physically drive my copy out to my house for the purpose of seeing how far they can park from my front door and still chuck the package to the doorstep with the accuracy of an inebriated urinating man who is starting to think Paula Deen is sort of hot.
Gas is cheap these days, yes, but humans are still expensive, right? Figure at least 30 minutes driving time because I live in the Dallas boonies. Probably an average of 30 mph so figure a gallon of gas is used by the delivery vehicle. So there is $2 of expense. A half hour at minimum wage is something like $4? So this is at best a break-even shipping operation and probably they take a small loss.
As an aside, I’m sure Amazon would love to try the drone delivery thing here but in Texas that just means a lot of downed and blown-to-bits drones. Unless they build shotgun-proof drones.
For the record, the vaunted tome is Anthony Robbins’ new book called “Money”. One would think it’s full of helpful financial advice. I’m guessing rule number one is, Avoid frivolous expenditures like $6 Same Day Shipping. Clearly I bought the right book. I should have time to start reading it by next week.