Misc Jenny on 05 Sep 2007 11:22 pm
Grolier Children Book
Last week, we paid a visit to the newly opened Giant Hypermarket in Bandar Kinrara. Saw their big banners all over LDP for quite some time already, finally they opened their door, so have to give them face and pay them a visit. Bored with IOI, Sunway and One Utama already.
My daughter saw a hugh baby tiger and insisted to stop to check it out! Haha, it was cute actually.
Looks like a real tiger waiting to catch its prey of the day!
How come the tiger was sitting on a pile of books? Because it was a children’s book counter. Very soon, before we realize it, a salesman came approaching us and told us about their products. OMG, I don’t like salesmen and what the hell nobody does.
Anyway, since my daughter likes the tiger, we just gave them a minute to explain their stories. 
They were from a famous publisher and distributer of children’s book called Scholastic. From the website, they claim that they are leader in educational technology, which is helping children around the world to Learn and Read.
But later, they explain that this is Scholastic’s partnership publisher - Grolier’s book stall.
He further introduced me one of the educational book set which is costed a whooping RM2300. OMG, that’s such an expensive book set. Anyway, it contains the following items (read if you are interested but most likely you have fallen asleep already):
- 10 sets of play and learn activities about colors, shapes, number…
- A few story books and CDs (can’t remember how many already, perhaps about 6 of them)
- 30++ “I wonder why, encyclopedia books”
- A few books on common words and objects which can help your children to pick up more than 3600 vocabularies in each book. They cover a lot of different categories such as zoo, school, adjectives, actions (eat, jumps…)
I really hope I could afford to buy this set of books for my little girl to cultivate her reading habits, but RM2300 is just too expensive. Maybe we can source around and get cheaper alternatives from big bookstores such as MPH, Popular and even online options such as Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.
Do you have any suggestion?
on 05 Sep 2007 at 11:41 pm 1.Azmeen said …
I’m a parent of a four year old and was approached by a Grolier agent a year ago.
Product wise, there’s no denying that their books are among the most attractive and content-rich.
However, I didn’t subscribe to their service (if you listen closely enough to their sales reps, you’ll learn that they don’t actually sell you books, but put you on a subscription hybrid thingy) because of the sales reps’ condescending approach in trying to get sales.
They tried to point out the benefits of their books (especially the encyclopedias) by trying to ask questions for which they don’t think I know the answers too.
For example, “Who has more bones in their bodies; babies or adults?”, “You’re a Muslim, right? Do you know when was the golden ages of the Islamic empire?”.
The rep seemed surprised that I actually knew the answers to these question.
If they hadn’t attempted the “selling through touching on insecurities” card with me, I’d probably would have subscribed to their services.
Just an example of how the wrong marketing approach can lose sales.
As for suggestions, all I can say is to check out the children’s section at your nearest public libraries. There you and your kids can take your time to check out the books available there.
I know that our public libraries aren’t necessarily up to date, but at least we can find out some books that would interest both you and your kids. Once you’ve got an idea of the sort of books you liked, it’s just a matter of hopping to the bookstore and picking up similar books.
Additionally, I’d recommend getting your kids IT-savvy at a young age by letting them use the computer often. Web sites such as Playhouse Disney Channel, Noggin, Sesame Street and the BBC’s Cbeebies have interesting educational web games and content for children.
on 05 Sep 2007 at 11:51 pm 2.Jenny said …
thanks for your suggestion very much. I have just bought some books for my kids..we really need to invest for their future. Haha, me and my husband also IT ppl, so I will let my kid to use the computer when she reach the age. Thanks