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CORRECTED - Borders to drop "sale or return" for HarperStudio books-WSJ

Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:50am EST

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(Corrects headline to make clear Borders' policy refers to books from HarperStudio, not all books)

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Dec 16 (Reuters) - Borders Group Inc (BGP.N), the second-largest U.S. bookseller, will accept books from publisher HarperStudio on a nonreturnable basis, departing from a decades-old publishing tradition, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Industry practice dating from the 1930s allowed retailers to return unsold titles to publishers for full credit and without incurring shipping costs, the newspaper said.

These titles, about 30 percent to 40 percent of all titles according to industry figures, eventually get sent back to the stores for heavily discounted sale, the paper added.

According to the WSJ, under the deal Borders will get a deeper discount on initial orders of books from HarperStudio in exchange for not returning any unsold books.

The paper quoted HarperStudio's president and publisher Robert Miller saying that the economic downturn has made publishers and booksellers more open to experimenting with models that might decrease waste and increase profit.

HarperStudio is the new imprint of News Corp's NWSa.N HarperCollins Publishers. Borders Group and NewsCorp could not be immediately reached for comment. (Reporting by Eric Yep in Bangalore; Editing by Erica Billingham)

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