The saddest part of this story is that Harvard's bookstore is so desperate to prevent students from shopping online that they kicked out a student who was writing down the prices to compare them online later. They claimed that the pricing is copyrighted, which, of course, it's not.

Face it: if you charge more for a book in your store than I can get it online, there's a really good chance I'll get it there. If these stores are so desperate for the business, they should have a terminal in their store and referral programs set up with all the major online retailers. That's about the only way it would work for them.