Amazon swallows UK online bookseller The world of online book retailing is about to get that little bit less competitive, with Amazon announcing that it’s reached agreement to buy UK seller The Book Depository. Perhaps recognizing the importance of the brand, the 900-pound gorilla has faithfully promised that it’s not going to squash The Book Depository brand. …
I am a Kindle owner with nothing particularly against Amazon, but I *LOVE* the Book Depository, and really fear for its continued excellence now. Free shipping up here to NZ was fantastic, and the range of books was very good. I am glad that I bought a lot from them in the last year, because I'm sure the assimilation will sooner or later (most likely sooner) mean the end of all that was so remarkably good about Book Depository.
No wonder Borders went under - the prices of books in NZ is beyond retarded - I don't know how *anyone* buys any of them. I only heard of the Book Depository about 6 months ago so have only managed to buy a couple of books but yes, if they remove free shipping to NZ, that'll be the last of them. Amazon UK did trial free shipping to Australia and NZ a couple of months ago (or discounted at least). I'm sure the Reg is right about Amazon examining anything that looks like good proper service / vfm.
One thing I noticed with Book Depository is their prices vary depending on your location.
Try this:
Those in UK, check a specific product on their website, note the price.
Connect to a VPN that's in North America and go back to that same product's page, you will notice the price has increased.
I'm not sure whether what they're doing is legal or not because they claim to offer free shipping but their prices increase to cover the extra shipping costs.
Damn damn and double damn... I've happily used them to send many many books to France after one too many run-ins with Amazon's laughably called "Customer Service". The Book Depository seemed to actually have a clue.
Good prices - although not *always* cheapest - that's the point, I still used them anyway...
Amazon has lost the plot. Searching for a product name brings up too many links to other sites, auctions etc and often these are displayed before the actual Amazon price. They're trying to grab every piece of the market and it's a mess; Amazon is becoming a tacky shopping search site like Kelkoo and the like.
I tried to buy a camera for my daughter yesterday and prices ranged from £79 to over £200 for the same item. In the end I gave up and ordered it from a different retailer; I don't like confusopolies.
I order a lot of items from Amazon, most video discs (DVD and Blu-Ray arrive intact and undamaged. Most CDs arrive with cracked or scratched cases. 50%+ of books arrive bent, scratched, torn or otherwise damaged. The latter are damaged BEFORE they are packaged because the packaging is always intact. Amazon's warehouse staff are either doing the damage themselves or the books are arriving from the printers in poor shape. Either way this could be solved by shrink-wrapping all books, if they'll do it for a £5 DVD then why not a £25 book?!
I like Amazon, their customer service is second to none but they urgently need to address their quality control.
I find this news most upsetting - Book Depository are/were a fantastic source. Not always necessarily the cheapest, but more often than not, and a great source for hard to find books.
Amazon on the other hand lost the plot a long time ago, when they turned into a purveyor of everything. And as a previous poster pointed out, their search results can now be so confusing, mixing in other vendors in an altogether unclear way, as to be of little use.
This seems a clear case for the Monopolies & Mergers Commission, but I hold out little hope of this takeover being blocked.
"I refuse to give money to Amazon.
abebooks.co.uk are being reasonable at the moment for me."
You mean, Abebooks, the amazon company.
From their site:
"AbeBooks is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. AbeBooks, an online bookselling pioneer, was acquired in December 2008 and remains a stand-alone operation with headquarters in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and a European office in Dusseldorf, Germany."
Died, the publishing and bookseller business has been contracting. Quality has suffered with the loss of typesetters, desk editors, staff that knew their books and authors, and the tea lady. Now you can skip the lot and get your Potter fix direct from the horses mouth! are agents next for a round of cost cutting.
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