An Empirical Test of Two Vendors’ Trade Discounts

In a comparison of discounts between Blackwell North America and Baker & Taylor, acquisitions personnel at Jacksonville State University found considerable discrepancy between the two vendors’ categorization of trade books. Then a recently announced lawsuit against Baker & Taylor (B&T) questioning the application of the trade book category, led to a review of B&T invoices for analysis of trade discounts. This study revealed that the vendor applied discounts from 5% to 40% for books classified as trade on their invoices. Based on that four-month study, the authors project an annual difference of almost $4,000 between actual discounts and the anticipated 40% discount for trade books as defined by B&T.