Ahem. Several points: (a) They don't discourage the activity, so why
not take the advantage (b) The staff don't work on commission, whether
or not you buy a book isn't going to make a difference [save for the
long term effect of sales] (c) "try before you buy", you can't be
expected to fork out $$ without having a good look at the product (d)
The people that browse aren't necessarily going to purchase the book if
they didn't have the browsing option -- in fact, the correlation is
likely to be between being able to browse and then deciding the book
holds enough value to be purchased. In summary, it's probably a better
business practice to allow browsing and reading.
Didn't work in a newsagent at one stage did you ?
Matthew.
-- Matthew Gream <M.Gream@nospam.uts.edu.au> (02) 821-2043 (sw/hw engineer)