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Salient. Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 26, No. 5. Monday, April 29, 1963

Textbook Prices and Profits

Textbook Prices and Profits

Subject (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) per cent
History 4.95 35/- 42/- 28/7 68
Political Science 6.00 42/- 51/- 33/8 52
Political Science 10.50 73/6 87/- 58/10 59
English .95 7/- 9/- 5/8 60
English 2.25 15/9 17/6 12/7 42
Biochemistry 12.50 87/6 116/- 70/- 66
Psychology 7.50 52/6 71/3 42/- 69
Psychology 14.00 98/- 117/6 78/6 49
Russian 5.75 40/3 49/6 32/3 53

Peter Blizard explains his chart: "The figures in this table represent the prices charged for individual books, of which multiple copies are avaiable all are set texts for large classes of students. One caution in terms of interpretation is required: Whitcombe's, naturally, gave me as little assistance as possible in the collection of data. All the figures refer to books of American origin, which tend to have a higher mark-up than those from the United Kingdom. These books do not constitute a valid sample, therefore findings cannot be treated with abandon: nevertheless, they do illustrate a trend—and a disturbing one."

"Columns (i) and (ii) illustrate the American retailers price and the conversion of this price to sterling (dollar equals 7/-), column (iii) shows Whitcombe and Tombs selling price. All booksellers receive a wholesalers discount, the size of which depends on the published price and the size of the order. This discount ranges from 20 per cent to 50 per cent. I have deducted 20 per cent only since individual figures have not been supplied, in view of the fact that all the books concerned are bulk orders this is probably too low. Column (iv) shows the cost of each book to Whitcombe and Tombs-retailers' price less 20 per cent. The final column, (v), shows the gross profit expressed as a percentage; this is arrived at by subtracting column (iv) from column (iii) and expressing the result as a percentage of column iv. Though this gross profit takes no account of shipping, freight, overheads and students discounts of 10 per cent, the profit rates make interesting reading—especially when Whitcombe and Tombs have a guaranteed market for these books."