Rainbow and Gumdrop 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
Today my para (who will be the librarian at the new school next year) had two vendor visits.
I’m choosing to journal about this because it was interesting to see what vendors will do to try and get a new school to choose them.
The two vendors that came today were smaller companies. Rainbow books came at 9:00 a.m. The man who represents the company is actually also a local author. He showed us a variety of new books that came in sets. At the end of his pitch he offered free MARC records and shelf-ready if we did a “large” order with him. He also said he would do a free author visit from the new school.
Before the Rainbow representative had time to pack up, the second vendor from Gumdrop books arrived. He had similar books to Rainbow, in fact many repeats. At the end however, his quote was higher. This was due to the fact that he was unable to offer free perks such as MARC records and shelf ready. When we asked him about it, he said it would come out of his commission. Not so impressive. We actually felt sorry for the guy, but that is not a reason to purchase his books.
It’s getting down to the point of needing to make some decisions. We still are meeting with one other vendor- Tandem based out of St. Louis. Their representative is coming April 10th. The Follet rep is coming one more time on April 4th.
