A week ago, HarperCollins won the hearts of Delhi’s book enthusiasts. It announced a hard-to-believe sale, offering a 90 percent discount on books – with prices as low as Rs 25, Rs 50 and Rs 100.
Now, the mega sale is over, but that sentiment of winning the hearts doesn’t persist for most book lovers. HarperCollins’ warehouse in Faridabad (expectedly) opened to a mad rush, but the publishing house didn’t foresee it. And the poor management only made matters worse. This is how the first day of the two-day sale looked:
Crowds had to wait for up to four hours to just be able to set foot in the warehouse. Many returned from the gate – before they could even catch a glimpse of racks full of books. The scorching heat added to the woes of the buyers waiting outside.
As things spiralled out of control, the sale was shut around half past noon. Even the police had to be summoned to ensure no one got hurt in the rush. HarperCollins, however, sent out a tweet thanking people’s enthusiasm.
Later in the day, they even changed their mind about continuing the sale, and declared that the warehouse wouldn’t open the next day at all.
Heartbreaks Galore
Prior to the event, a Facebook event page had been created by AbeRuk, a self-proclaimed curator of “high quality, low cost platform to buy books”.
There were a few images of people boasting of their loot.
But, mostly, the page was splattered with complaints about HarperCollins’ poor management, including no systematic entry with barricades.
Not cool, we say, HarperCollins!
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