> This move will drive more traffic to Amazon, unfortunately.
No it won't, at least not from my entire country.
BD: You pay $20-$40 for a book. It gets delivered to your door (mostly, after a period so long you forget which book you even ordered). You pay a tiny fixed local import tax (around $1).
Amazon.com: You pay $20-$40 for a book + $49.95 fixed delivery fee + ~$15 for "taxes and import duties".
I have never purchased a physical item from Amazon.com because of those fees. I have ordered dozens of books from BD, aware that it's owned by Amazon, because it was at a price I'm willing to pay for a book. I will continue not buying from Amazon.com because it's way above my price range (or really anyone's) for a physical book.
I note that Wordery still does free international shipping, although I found that BD often came out cheaper and Wordery's range is lesser. Whenever I buy a book (which happens on the order of about once a week, so a fairly regular check of suppliers) I check a half dozen places, including BD, Wordery, Amazon, abebooks, alibris, booksplease, thriftbooks and booksetc.co.uk and of course ebay; at various times, each of those has been the cheapest option, including shipping (where BD and Wordery, with their free shipping, had a big advantage because of that).
BD founded by someone who used to work for amazon; Wordery founded by someone who used to work for BD. Maybe this is Wordery's big chance.
Oh no. One less place that I can shop my books from. It's one of the rare sellers that doesn't charge for international postage. And I will miss the way the rare books can be found easily from Book depository.
Wonder if there are any good alternatives for non-fiction titles and medical technology textbooks.
Amazon continuing to operate Abebooks lets them keep substantial control over the online used book market in the US. I'm not familiar with Book Depository, but if they close Abebooks I think it would open up space for a new competitor in the book space.
Does anyone honestly believe the cutback story? My biggest fear is that starting to purchase elsewhere I could get counterfeit copies, it is well known that you can get counterfeit books even ordering from Amazon. I've bought a lot of books from Book Depository, not only for their prices but also because I got genuine book copies delivered to my door. I also appreciate Book Depository's straightforward checkout not forcing you to create an account to buy books. For sure I didn't see this one coming...
I heard that they're often not as cheap as BookDepository, that they don't have free international shipping (which can really push the price up), and that people sometimes receive counterfeit books.
I checked a few books from the homepage. All more expensive by a few pounds than the competition.
Physical book stores where you get at least some value out of speaking to someone can afford to charge a little bit more, but an online store that is more expensive than Amazon is doomed to fail.
I see a pattern here ... (recent kill of dpreview comes to mind). Maybe entrepreneurs should value freedom and independence more. If the owners of dpreview and Book Depository wouldn't have sold their business to amazon, then maybe both would be still around for a long time. Don't blame Amazon, blame the former owners.
Btw.: A topic in DHH's book "Rework" is the actual goal and value of a company. It is a good read.
> If the owners of dpreview and Book Depository wouldn't have sold their business to amazon, then maybe both would be still around for a long time. Don't blame Amazon, blame the former owners.
That's a bizarre and kinda awful sentiment. If we're going to focus on absolving Amazon, we might as well just reach for the standard cop-out of blaming consumers.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 148 ms ] threadWhy?
It'd probably improve their balance sheet and public image.
Amazon's edge is the cross sell.
The Amazon brand is known worldwide because of the retail. The retail business is an extremely valuable behemoth.
It was the only remotely affordable place to order physical books from. Amazon proper charges $60+ for delivery regardless of the item's price.
It is going to be signifantly harded for me to expand my library in the future.
This move will drive more traffic to Amazon, unfortunately.
I feel for you and your friends. It truly was disruptive when BD launched, and made such an impact on the book scene. Sad day.
No it won't, at least not from my entire country.
BD: You pay $20-$40 for a book. It gets delivered to your door (mostly, after a period so long you forget which book you even ordered). You pay a tiny fixed local import tax (around $1).
Amazon.com: You pay $20-$40 for a book + $49.95 fixed delivery fee + ~$15 for "taxes and import duties".
I have never purchased a physical item from Amazon.com because of those fees. I have ordered dozens of books from BD, aware that it's owned by Amazon, because it was at a price I'm willing to pay for a book. I will continue not buying from Amazon.com because it's way above my price range (or really anyone's) for a physical book.
BD founded by someone who used to work for amazon; Wordery founded by someone who used to work for BD. Maybe this is Wordery's big chance.
Wonder if there are any good alternatives for non-fiction titles and medical technology textbooks.
I have long thought to add a book search to my semi-popular Gnod literature projects (https://www.gnooks.com and https://www.literature-map.com).
But I always thought everybody is only buying at Amazon anyhow. Interesting to see the closing of a book shop on the front page of HN.
If there is a list of interesting alternatives, I will add them to this new book search page:
https://www.gnod.com/search/books
exactly same thing when they acquired Book Depository
Believe the motivation behind cutbacks? Never, FAANG is motivated by greed, so it is incentivized to lie regarding the reasoning.
Anyways, I heard a website called Amazon.com sells great books...
Amazon.com is where the books are.
Physical book stores where you get at least some value out of speaking to someone can afford to charge a little bit more, but an online store that is more expensive than Amazon is doomed to fail.
Btw.: A topic in DHH's book "Rework" is the actual goal and value of a company. It is a good read.
That's a bizarre and kinda awful sentiment. If we're going to focus on absolving Amazon, we might as well just reach for the standard cop-out of blaming consumers.
https://www.bookfinder.com/
If you're not from US and you don't need physical books buy a used one, deliver it to a book scanning service like
https://1dollarscan.com/
(used them for several books recently)
And for 30-40 USD (or even less) you'll get a scanned version.