The Tarnished Reputation of Big Bad Wolf Indonesia

Tags

big bad wolf, book event, book haul, bookfair, my story, shopping

I have written a post about the excitement of Big Bad Wolf Indonesia bookfair last year, where everyone was suddenly becoming a booklover. I’m okay with that, of course, and I am actually happy that for once, books are considered cool 🙂

So I was pretty excited when Big Bad Wolf (BBW) has decided to visit Indonesia again, in the same venue at ICE BSD. I started to imagine the affordable import books that I can buy, and the excitement of shopping books not through online stores (I’ve been online shopping mostly for the past year).

Moreover, as a book blogger, I have received an invitation to attend the VIP Pre-Sale. Something that was highly recommended from my friends who attended the same event last year.

So I took one day off from the office and went to the venue early on that day, hoping to be there before it’s getting crowded.

Turned out, it was REALLY CROWDED. Like, in the market or something. I’m glad because at least the venue is bigger this year, so there’s still some space between the tables, and people can shop quite comfortably. But… still, I didn’t expect the so-called VIP event being that crowded, and it didn’t feel like an exclusive event at all.

The worst thing about the event was the online shop and the so-called “jasa titip/jastip”. They were like vultures who always hovered around the book stacks and grabbed them as soon as the BBW staff brought out new stuff. Some of them even made some kind of “base camp” at the rear of the room, where they stacked their “treasures”, and had some people looked after the stuff, so no one would touch the books. They could grab up to 10 or 20 books with the same title- for what, you ask? For selling them again, of course- with more expensive price, too. Mostly they took the boxsets for kids or activity books, the kind of books that would be easy to sell. But sometimes they also grabbed things like novels and non fiction books. Ugh.

Another thing that was terrible about the VIP Pre-Sale was the crazy line at the payment area. It was soooo crazy, people could be in line for hours. My friends from BBI, Ren and Mbak Threz, broke the record by being in the line for 5 hours. And this was because too many online shopping people shopped hundreds and hundreds of books. The cashiers were overwhelmed, the system was not ready, and simply said, it was a disaster.

I was pretty lucky because when I saw the crazy line, a Bank Mandiri staff approached me, offering a credit card application that can be exchanged with fast pass voucher to the cashier. Without thinking too much, I quickly agreed, and only waited for about 30 minutes in the cashier. Phew.

How about the books, though?

Well, it was not as many as last year, especially for fictions, young adults and middle grade books. Fortunately I found some of my wishlists there. And even though BBW also raised the book price compare to last year (from IDR 60k to 75k, from IDR100k to 130k, etc), they’re generally still ok.

The interior- not that bad compare to last year.

Some cute classics!

Another stack of classics.

Enid Blyton galore!

One of the base camps of the online shopping people!!! See their stacks??

Ibu Susi was also shopping!

My book haul 🙂

So… based on this first day experience, I decided not to come back to BBW, thinking that the situation will get worse.

Turned out, everyone who went to BBW after that day said that it’s not crowded, line in the cashier was manageable, and lots of new titles came up. So I started to consider coming back to BBW 😀

There’s this Narnia boxset that I kept waiting to appear in BBW, because it was advertised in their website. And finally, just a few days before BBW ended, I saw in their Instagram story that the boxset was out. Yeay! So that night, a few hours after I saw the Instagram, I went back to BBW. It was a Friday night, just before midnight, and the venue was not too crowded.

But after looking here and there, I started to get anxious. Where’s the Narnia???

I asked a staff and some of them just told me to keep on looking “over there”. After some time, a staff who helped me to ask around finally found out that the boxsets were sold out!!! Can you believe it? She said they were sold out just two hours after it’s been announced in Instagram. I can’t believe it. I mean, from hundreds of their stock, all were gone within two hours? These were Narnia books, not Coldplay tickets. I didn’t buy it that many people really wanted to read Narnia- and grabbed them like crazy.

So what happened? The staff told me that mostly the Narnia boxsets were bought by the jastip and online shops. Ugh! I knew it!!!!

I sent a message to BBW’s Instagram, ada here’s their reply:

They blamed me!

So instead of giving solution or promised to take a look at the problem, they BLAMED me because I came too late!!! And they denied that the books were bought mostly by the online shops and jastip, even though I got that information from the ground staff. So unprofessional.

For me, BBW has tarnished their reputation. Instead of being the fun, affordable bookfair that is loved by the bookworms, now they are just another business oriented company, who don’t care about their loyal customers and focused more on the profit. They let the online shops and jastip going crazy, without any consideration for other customers, who have to beat the traffic to reach the venue. If online shops and jastip are the ones who can standby for 24 hours at BBW, no wonder they can get all of the books including the most wanted ones. And that means, we- the ordinary booklovers- have to rely on them to get their books, even though that means they’ll be more expensive!

If this is the case, so why don’t BBW just have the bookfair only for online shops and jastip? Let them do crazy bulk shopping like those stores who compete shopping in Tanah Abang before Lebaran.

Sadly, these things only happened in Indonesia. Only in Indonesia, even bookfairs can be ruined because of money, business, and ego.

So, Big Bad Wolf Indonesia, congratulations for ruining your reputations and relationship with the bookworms!

Bye.

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Big Bad Wolf – When Books Become a HIT

Tags

big bad wolf, book haul, book sales, book shop, my story, shopping

Saya pernah menulis tentang pesta yang paling disukai oleh para kutu buku di postingan ini. Seperti kebanyakan manusia, kutu buku juga suka berpesta kok, hanya saja mungkin pestanya agak sedikit lain, karena didominasi oleh deretan buku. Bookfair, book bazaar, book market, book sale, apapun namanya, pasti akan memancing kutu buku untuk berbondong-bondong datang ke sana.

Saya sendiri merasa pesta buku di Indonesia masih agak kurang memuaskan. Meski ada beberapa event tahunan seperti Indonesian Book Fair (IBF) atau Pesta Buku Jakarta (PBJ), isinya masih agak nanggung menurut saya, karena harganya kadang masih cukup mahal, pilihan bukunya pun kurang nendang. Dan lagi, akhir-akhir ini event bazaar buku murah seperti itu lebih sering didompleng oleh acara lain seperti talk show, peluncuran buku, lomba mewarnai, dan lain-lain yang sebenarnya kurang berhubungan dengan belanja buku murah dan sifatnya lebih untuk promosi para sponsor.

Saya sendiri mendambakan bazaar buku murah seperti boekenfestijn di Belanda – yang sifatnya memang besar-besaran dan digelar bergantian di banyak kota. Saya ingat suasana seru saat bertemu dengan sesama bookworm yang datang ke bazaar tersebut sambil menenteng koper.

Harapan saya mulai membuncah lagi saat mendengar kabar kalau Big Bad Wolf- event bazaar buku murah yang biasanya rutin digelar di Malaysia- untuk pertama kalinya akan berkunjung ke Jakarta (tepatnya ke BSD di Tangerang hehe). Sempat agak skeptis sih, soalnya banyak yang meramalkan kalau buku-bukunya nggak akan semurah di Malaysia, pilihannya lebih sedikit, dan mungkin banyak buku-buku lama. Tapi karena ini adalah bazaar buku impor murah yang pertama di Indonesia, saya memutuskan untuk datang saja. Apalagi promosinya gencar banget.

Saya datang di hari Sabtu (30 April), hari pertama Big Bad Wolf (BBW) dibuka secara resmi di ICE, gedung konvensi super besar yang berlokasi di BSD. Ini pertama kalinya juga saya berkunjung ke ICE dan kesan pertama saya, tempat ini memang cocok untuk menggelar acara bazaar buku besar seperti BBW ini, karena lapangan parkirnya luas banget, sementara Hall nya juga bisa menampung puluhan meja panjang yang dipadati tumpukan buku.

Suasana BBW hari pertama

Saat saya datang ke sana, suasananya belum terlalu ramai. Masih nyaman untuk mencari buku tanpa harus berdesakan. Dan meski susunan bukunya tidak terlalu teratur dan agak random, saya masih bisa menikmati pencarian buku dengan tenang. Hanya saja, karena waktu itu saya datang bersama Yofel, memang agak sedikit rempong juga karena yang ada saya lebih banyak menemani dia mencari buku dibandingkan berburu buku buat saya, hahaha..

Yofel hepi!

Dan akhirnya, memang Yofel yang membeli buku lebih banyak. Saya sendiri hanya sempat mengambil yang kebetulan lewat saja, ditambah beberapa titipan. Buku-buku yang sempat saya lihat hanya yang bergenre fiction (general, literature dan young adult), dan buku anak-anak.

Antrian kasir pun masih sepi dan semuanya berjalan lancar. Hanya saja, saya belum puassss karena belum sempat belanja untuk diri sendiri hahaha. Saya pun bertekad ingin datang lagi sebelum BBW berakhir.

Hmm…pilih-pilih!

Masih rapi dan sepi

Pojok poster yang bikin ngilerrr

Tak disangka, setelah hari pertama itu, banyak orang mulai memposting kunjungan mereka ke BBW di social media. Ditambah dengan promo dari akun BBW yang juga gencar, maka tiba-tiba saja BBW menjadi fenomena yang luar biasa, dan mendadak saja belanja buku menjadi sesuatu yang sangat cool! Apalagi, saat weekend dan long weekend kemarin ini, BBW buka 24 jam, menjadikan pengalaman belanja buku tengah malam menjadi suatu tren yang baru 😀

Saya sendiri sebenarnya senang karena tiba-tiba saja buku dan kutu buku menjadi pusat perhatian masyarakat khususnya Jakarta. Semua orang mendadak ikut serta berlomba-lomba belanja buku impor dan tak mau ketinggalan fenomena ini. Meski saya tahu, orang Indonesia memang latah dan kadang niatnya lain, tapi nggak papalah, sesekali menempatkan dunia perbukuan sebagai topik pembicaraan.

Namun, sisi buruknya adalah: BBW jadi sangat ramai dan padat, selalu penuh setiap waktu bahkan di jam-jam aneh seperti tengah malam atau subuh sekalipun. Sepertinya semua orang tidak mau kehabisan sale buku murah ini – memperoleh buku anak seharga IDR 30k atau novel yang lumayan baru seharga IDR 45k, dan semuanya berbahasa Inggris- memang godaan yang luar biasa- bahkan bagi orang-orang yang sebelumnya bukan pencinta buku kelas berat.

Saya sendiri akhirnya hadir lagi ke BBW saat long weekend kemarin, bersama-sama Mama saya yang juga penasaran akan event ini, dan ponakan saya yang juga kutu buku. Namun, memang suasananya sudah amat berbeda. Masuk ke tempat parkir saja sudah mengantri, lalu mau ambil trolley berebutan, dan yang pasti, menyusuri meja demi meja pajangan jadi tidak bebas lagi karena penuh orang di mana-mana. Hiks! Padahal, kami datang menjelang tengah malam, tapi banyak sekali pengunjung yang berdesakan, termasuk yang masih membawa anak kecil maupun bayi. Bahkan, mengantri kasir pun sampai lebih dari 1/2 jam sendiri.

Sementara itu, pilihan bukunya juga sudah berubah dari saat kunjungan saya yang pertama. Banyak juga buku-buku baru atau boxset yang sudah out of stock. Untunglah saya masih menemukan beberapa buku incaran saya 🙂

Matthew, ponakan saya di tengah kekacauan BBW

Saya hanya bisa berharap, semoga animo masyarakat yang menggila terhadap acara ini akan menjadi alasan BBW untuk mengadakan event ini secara reguler di Indonesia, bukan hanya di Jakarta tapi bahkan berkeliling ke kota-kota lain di Indonesia, seperti yang mereka lakukan di Malaysia.

Dan terlepas dari apapun alasan orang untuk datang ke BBW, saya berharap semoga sajaaa memang belanja buku, membaca buku, dan segala hal terkait buku, bisa terus menjadi hal yang hip dan cool di Indonesia, bukan hanya tren sesaat saja, seperti yang seringkali terjadi di negara ini, di mana masyarakatnya memang sangat-sangat mudah terkena penyakit latah 🙂

Long live the bookworms!

Belanjaan kloter 1 – kebanyakan punya Yofel!

Belanjaan kloter 2 🙂