Friday, November 30, 2012

Vermont Country $tore

We just received yet another catalogue from the Vermont Country Store, a company we must have ordered from many moons ago. Having noticed that a recent VCS catalogue offered replica Blackwing pencils for $3.90 each, and having now noticed what appears to be a very high VCS price for a pencil sharpener, I decided to check the sharpener and three more random VCS items against Amazon’s prices:

Boston X-Acto Model KS Pencil Sharpener
VCS $29.95 : Amazon list $18.40 : Amazon $9.39

Caswell-Massey Almond Oil
VCS $24.95 : Amazon $20.00

Gumby and Pokey
VCS $16.95 : Amazon list $12.95 : Amazon $10.95

Swing-A-Way Can Opener
VCS 15.95 : Amazon list $11.99 : Amazon $9.98

Bag Balm Ointment
VCS $10.95 : Amazon $7.99

VCS total: $98.75 + $16.95 shipping = $115.70
Amazon total: $58.31 + $12.66 shipping = $70.97
Amazon comes out 38% cheaper.

There may be some mystical (or semi-mystical) cachet that accompanies items from the Vermont Country Store, but realists are better off ordering elsewhere.

comments: 2

count reeshard said...

I lived in rural upstate New York during the late '80s, a boom era for catalogue shopping. Our large metal mailbox was at least half full with catalogues most days. Some of these were alluring in their beautiful, glossy presentations. others bordered on soft-core porn (I'm guessing you'll know which company sent the latter.) And then there was, on matte-paper, VCS, the print equivalent of eating sand. I regarded this almost as a religious tract dispatched by a cult who thought whipping themselves with nettles (while wearing dowdy togs) might bring them closer to the Almighty.

Michael Leddy said...

Dowdy in the extreme. They make L. L. Bean look avant-garde.