Why I Spent $37 on the 7th Harry Potter Book

Ok, so some of you may not know this, but you can pre-order the final Harry Potter book through Amazon.com for $17.99, with guaranteed release-date delivery, as well as a pre-order price guarantee (if the price drops before the release, Amazon passes the additional savings on to you). Considering the list price of the book is $34.99, why wouldn't I buy it from Amazon.com? I decided that I wanted to buy my book on island, from a local business.

This is an idea I have been struggling with ever since my Grandmother's rural town lost the only grocery store serving it. Too many people were driving 30 minutes away to a bigger town with discount grocery stores and a Wal-Mart. For some people, it was terrific to have so many buying options and the drive was not a big deal; however, there were many people in the community who did not have the ability to drive half an hour each way to go shopping. In the end, it was a tremendous blow to the community.

My desire as a consumer is to find the absolutely best price possible. I used to think that "best" was synonymous with "lowest." Now I am certain that is not always the case. The impact of our dollars is one of the strongest voices that we have in expressing ourselves. By spending or withholding our spending from specific businesses, we impact their ability to survive. When we go off island to purchase something, that is a sale lost by a local business, because there are not people coming to Vashon just to buy and balance this equation. I am not saying every purchase we make should be on Vashon, from a local business. I am saying that if we like having multiple grocery stores and gas stations to choose from, the majority of our purchases should be on island. While the loss of a business may not seem to impact us individually, it is a blow to the community…and our neighbor, who owned the business…and their family.

So here is the reason I spent $37 on the final Harry Potter book: When I looked at what was the best price for me...I saw a local book store that I could walk into (with a very cool selection of books to browse, where I can bump into my friends), that was doing its best to offset the impact of the higher book price (offering double points on their rewards card), and throwing a book release party (for the people who are just crazy-out-of-their-head excited about the Harry Potter books and want to hang out with others like me...I mean, "them!"). All of these are important factors to me. And when I learned that even people who bought their book elsewhere were welcome at the party, I really wanted to spend $37 at my local bookstore. It was the best value.