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I don't get it. What's the problem?
If Tata-McGrawHill (MGH has a tie-up with Tata in India, as far as I can make out) finds that it can profitably sell textbooks here at a fraction of the cost for customers in the USA.
The books are low-price editions, which makes absolutely no difference to me, nor to anyone else here. We're used to studying from books with a paper quality much worse, and Tata-MGH does a fine job of making the books good and durable.
To give everyone an idea of the disparity:
Rudin's "Principles of Mathematical Analysis", a small but totally awesome book, is listed on Amazon at a price of $ 160. I got it at a price of 193 Rs., which is equal to, astounding and shocking as it may seen, a grand total of....... $4.825. And Michael Greenberg's "Advanced Engineering Mathematics" is listed at $ 153 on Amazon. I got it for $10.425 (Rs. 417). Both at the same bookstore. In the city-s book-market, it's standard practice to give a discount of 15% (to 20%) on every purchase, always, to everyone, irrespective of the size of the purchase. I'm quoting the post-discount figures. But given that the 15% is constant for everyone, I can take it that's just the normal reduction - it applies to everyone, so can be safely neglected. So the effective market price is the Indian sticker price minus 15%.
Put together, the total discount as compared to what people in the USA pay, at least for this purchase, is: 95.127795527%.
That is, I'm paying less than 5% of the price a person in the USA pays to get (effectively) the same book(s).
What the hell?
I mean this. Seriously, what gives? What's the problem? Why the gigantic disparity?
If Tata-McGrawHill (MGH has a tie-up with Tata in India, as far as I can make out) finds that it can profitably sell textbooks here at a fraction of the cost for customers in the USA.
The books are low-price editions, which makes absolutely no difference to me, nor to anyone else here. We're used to studying from books with a paper quality much worse, and Tata-MGH does a fine job of making the books good and durable.
To give everyone an idea of the disparity:
Rudin's "Principles of Mathematical Analysis", a small but totally awesome book, is listed on Amazon at a price of $ 160. I got it at a price of 193 Rs., which is equal to, astounding and shocking as it may seen, a grand total of....... $4.825. And Michael Greenberg's "Advanced Engineering Mathematics" is listed at $ 153 on Amazon. I got it for $10.425 (Rs. 417). Both at the same bookstore. In the city-s book-market, it's standard practice to give a discount of 15% (to 20%) on every purchase, always, to everyone, irrespective of the size of the purchase. I'm quoting the post-discount figures. But given that the 15% is constant for everyone, I can take it that's just the normal reduction - it applies to everyone, so can be safely neglected. So the effective market price is the Indian sticker price minus 15%.
Put together, the total discount as compared to what people in the USA pay, at least for this purchase, is: 95.127795527%.
That is, I'm paying less than 5% of the price a person in the USA pays to get (effectively) the same book(s).
What the hell?
I mean this. Seriously, what gives? What's the problem? Why the gigantic disparity?
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