Buying Books for Juan Or at MPH Stock Clearance Sale

On 19th March (Thursday), Mommy took leave from work to go shop for a piano and then veered off to go for this book sale, partiularly to see what baby or children books Mommy can buy for Juan Or (Mommy has already stocked up quite a lot of baby and children books for him since Mommy was still pregnant with him!).

This book sale was held from 14th to 22nd March 2009 in Mayang Plaza (SS26, Petaling Jaya). By the time Mommy went for this sale, it was already the 6th day, so Mommy didn't expect a lot of crowd by then, and it indeed was not crowded! Anyway, Mommy reached there at about 1.50 pm.

So, what did Mommy see there? Lots of children books, and many of the books had 30% off the price tags. Some had 50% discount (those books on the tall book shelves), but you have to search the books one by one which was rather tedious if you are rushing for time. The Disney and Sesame Street books were still quite expensive at RM28 (price cannot be discounted anymore!). The New McDonald's Farm children educational VCDs were cheap, sold at RM3 only (but Mommy bought one before this at RM5 in the most recent MPH book fair in One Utama!). The Usborne Young Reader Series sold here at RM11 or RM11++ (Mommy can't remember!) was more expensive and lesser choices than during the MPH Distributor Warehouse Sale (held somewhere around October 2008) which sold each for RM7 only and has the whole lot of collection for you to choose from. However, take note that this current sale is held by MPH retailer section and not MPH Distributor. So do expect some differences in the discounts they give and the variety of books for sale.

Here's what Mommy bought for Juan Or:

1. My Peekaboo Fun - lift-the-flap type of board book, with 30% discount, originally sold for RM15.90.

(Front view)

(A bull hiding behind the flap.)

2. Who Goes Moo? - another board book with colourful illustrations with farm theme, so you can expect farm type of noises from farm objects for baby to learn. Sold with 30% discount, originally sold for RM4.90.

(Front view)

(Mommy loves the colourful illustrations and Juan Or seems to love this book the most because of the funny sound Mommy has to make when reading this book with him.)

3. Magnetic Counting Fun - this book has magnets for children to place according to their imagination and according to the story in each page. This book also has very colourful illustrations, but is suitable for children above 3 years old - when they no longer put things into their mouth! So, Juan Or cannot use this book yet. This book's original price is RM29.90 and sold with 30% discount.

(Front view)

(Mostly background scenary pictures for children to place magnets according to how the story goes.)

4. The Illustrated Musical Instruments Handbook - Mommy bought this book, partly because of Mommy's own interest since Mommy is also a piano teacher, and partly for Juan Or's future music education (but that's still a very long way to go!). This book's original price is RM39.90 and sold with 30% discount.

(Front view)

(This book has interesting stories, facts and history of almost all kinds of musical instruments - a good read for serious music students.)

So, all in all, Mommy spent RM63.40 in this sale.

The week before, Mommy saw a short article write-up about this sale in The Star newspaper. The article mentioned that MPH is giving out a free book to each of the first 10 customers on each day of the sale. The conditions were that the customer must produce the entire page of the newspaper article and the customer must purchase at least RM50 there. So since Mommy only reached there at 1.50 pm, Mommy did not hope too much to be the first 10 customers of the day to fulfill those conditions, but it turned out that Mommy did! And Mommy had indirectly learnt the trick on how to get free book: Go only on those days when the sale has started for quite a lot of days already, then you'll stand a bigger chance. Chances are that most people who want to claim for the free books will go on the first few days of the sale. After that, things will somehow 'cool down' - so that's when you 'attack'! Simple, right? Here's how the free gift book looks like (believe me, the book was even wrapped in gift wrapping paper!):

(A recipe book of quick and delicious creative cooking - all are Western style cooking which is not quite Mommy's taste, but Mommy will keep it anyway, just in case Mommy wants to venture into Western cooking in the future!)