Book Xcess

Ummu Auni was the one who told me about the Book Xcess shop at Amcorp Mall. I’ve never been there though. I reside in Klang Valley, but I just haven’t been to Amcorp Mall – it’s a considerable distance away. I’m still looking for more reasons to go there other than to visit this bookstore. Visiting the store’s website, I have a better idea of the store’s concept. Their books are significantly lower than Malaysia retail prices, for example books usually being sold for RM34.90 only costs RM19.90. And these books are new, not secondhand. The reason they can sell the books at these prices is because they get the supply from discounted excess copies that publishers had overprinted and cannot sell to standard bookstores. This also means that they can only offer you what they have. You can’t expect to find just any book, but the good news is you can download their list of books available from their website, so you can check first.

Recently, they launched the Book Xcess blog. What I like most about the blog is they post book reviews regularly. Since some of the books they have on offer are not very well-known, a review would help to give readers an idea of whether they would enjoy the books or not. For example, one the books featured, which is a graphic novel titled A Professor’s Daughter by Joann Sfar & Emmanuel Guibert sounds really interesting and I would just love to buy it!

But I wonder why they are not doing online sales services. In fact, I half-expected this question to be answered in their FAQ section of the store website, but it’s not. I would rather pay a RM6 delivery cost rather than to have to drive all the way to Amcorp Mall just to buy a book, which will probably cost more, but more importantly would be a lot more time spent. I hope they can consider selling their books online. I’m sure there’s lots of other readers especially those outside Klang Valley would appreciate this service. If the cost to maintain a stock position in order to automate checkout is too high, they can consider hiring one staff to manage online sales. They already have list of books available in their website. Customers email to inquire, then this staff confirms availability, receives payment and arrange for delivery of the books.