Super Bargains at Borders Books; Economics Books 70% Off

The liquidators who are liquidating the contents of 200 Borders bookstores have just 3 days left, including today, for their liquidation. Then their contract runs out.

In other words, the liquidators have every incentive to mark down books as low as they can, right now. Books in the economics section at the San Francisco Borders in the San Francisco Centre Mall are marked down by as much as 70%. I headed over to the Borders in Union Square today.

NYT reports that the liquidators:

agreed to pay Borders 85.75 percent of the “cost value” of all merchandise, according to court papers. The estimated cost value is between $180.6 million and $204 million.

The liquidators must sell as much as possible before their contract expires in order to maximize profit. Afterwards, their options are limited: They can sell stock to a non-retail customer, hang onto it and attempt to sell it later when liquidating other stores, or abandon it. They can’t sell to wholesalers or bulk purchasers who may return Borders stock to publishers, and thus Borders’s competitors.

Here's the full list of stores that are closing