Returning books to a book club

Chutzpah

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Jan 9, 2009
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A representative from The Book People goes to one of the baby groups that my wife frequents, and every now and then she picks up a bargain. I can't fault them as a company for what they do, for example, she recently bought a box set of 15 Roald Dahl books for £16:

Roald Dahl Collection - 15 Books by Roald Dahl - the Book People

However, she showed me one of her recent purchases the other day and rather annoyingly she had taken it upon herself to buy my brother a book for Christmas. Whilst a lovely thought, I pointed out that we weren't buying him anything this year and just buying something for his baby (an agreement between us).

She is going to ask on Wednesday if she can return it (exactly seven days after receiving it), but it got me thinking. Do the distance selling regulations cover you when you buy through an independent distributor/rep like this?
 

Tony

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Apr 7, 2008
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Great question I have bought from them before and they are great for Christmas presents (I thought I wasn't going to talk about that).

Anyway, back to the question. It is actually the Doorstep Selling Regulations that apply or the formal name - The Cancellation of Contracts made in a Consumer’s Home or Place of Work etc Regulations 2008.

However, the transaction needs to be more than £35 and I don't think they have anything that costs more than that.

Doorstep selling and your consumer rights | Consumer Information

Just to confuse the poor consumer the cancellation period rules are different to the Distance Selling Regulations:

Similar to the Distance Selling Regulations, you are able to cancel the contract at any time within 7 days from the time the written notice (of your right to cancel) was given to you by the trader. You can either use the cancellation form which should have been provided, or a simple written notice, as long as it is clear of your intentions. Emails are now recognised forms of written notice. With regard to sending your notice to cancel by post, as long as it has been posted before the end of the 7 days, it doesn’t matter when it is actually received. For this reason, it is always advisable to send it recorded delivery.
 

Chutzpah

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So in effect it's like a purchase from a shop then?

I'm not overly bothered, just intrigued - if they refuse to take it back and they're within their rights to do so I'll probably just read it myself (or think hard about who else might want it....)
 

Tony

What Consumer Founder
Apr 7, 2008
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If it is less than £35 yes - it is just like buying from a shop. They might just give her her money back but this would be in addition to any statutory right, but you know that.

Tony
 

Rachelle

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Apr 25, 2009
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Funnily enough I had never heard of The Book People until today and then I saw them set up on a stall at my local gym. I bought the whole set of Beatrix Potter for £30 and a world atlas for £10. A complete bargain - at least until I saw that whole sets of Beatrix Potter are going on Ebay for around £15 (but there was an hour or so left to bid so I'm telling myself that it was a good purchase). How on earth do they manage to sell these books so cheaply?
 

Chutzpah

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Buy in bulk and shift it with little overheads.

They pay commission to their distributors in much the same way Avon and Kleaneze do.

I found their 'work with us' page quite interesting, waxing lyrical about how with one van you can turnover £200,000. They fail to mention that turnover is vanity and profit is sanity - there's no point in turning over £200k if your actual profit is only 5% of that!

(n.b. I don't actually know what the commission structure is like, I was just musing)
 

Rachelle

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Apr 25, 2009
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Hmm - the man who sold me the books today certainly didn't look as though he was rolling in it. And he left before lunch so can't have been having that good a day (or maybe it was a great day!).