131–140 of 212 posts
Not sure this is worthy of being on HN.
When I worked for Rogue Wave Software in the 90's, we took an all-team field trip (rented bus) up to Powell's TB with everyone getting a spending amount to get whatever they wanted.
Of the last 10 books I bought on Amazon 4 were faulty prints with miscut pages, misaligned pages, misprint pages. Two of them had misprint covers. All of them were sold as new by Amazon itself. I am done with buying books from them
Why not buy from bookdepository.com ? They even have free shipping if I remember correctly. Honest question - I don't buy books often.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was looking at kids books yesterday and found a set of 'feelings' books, but it was $108... Checked on lazada.sg and it was $32... They may hate it, but $70 difference is too much. If it was like $50 I would have just bought the set while at the store...
This is why a lot of countries have a "fixed book price" system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price
Kudos to Powell's, I've spent literally thousands of dollars over the years at that magnificent store and will continue to do so; spent hour upon hour there in my childhood getting lost in wonders it holds. They don't try to undercut smaller bookstores by offering discounts on new books like B&N, Amazon, etc., their employees seem to actually enjoy working there, it's a family-friendly environment and the selection s…
‘Course I haven’t been commuting or taking road trips so I haven’t been listening as much lately.
Kudos to Powell's, I've spent literally thousands of dollars over the years at that magnificent store and will continue to do so; spent hour upon hour there in my childhood getting lost in wonders it holds. They don't try to undercut smaller bookstores by offering discounts on new books like B&N, Amazon, etc., their employees seem to actually enjoy working there, it's a family-friendly environment and the selection s…
I mean, it's a bookstore, with active curation, that spans a city block. Amazing!
I end up with the book I had in mind, plus half a dozen books discovered along the way...
I'm going to take this opportunity to grind my personal axe: Amazon is extremely lazy about shipping books, throwing them into lightly-padded envelopes. Books shipped from Amazon usually arrive with at least minor cosmetic damage and sometimes much worse. For me this is reason enough to avoid buying books on Amazon.
Oddly, Lego damages their own stuff too, no way to guarantee uncrushed boxes I guess.
I'm going to take this opportunity to grind my personal axe: Amazon is extremely lazy about shipping books, throwing them into lightly-padded envelopes. Books shipped from Amazon usually arrive with at least minor cosmetic damage and sometimes much worse. For me this is reason enough to avoid buying books on Amazon.
I recently ordered an illustrated novel with a rather heavy paperweight - Amazon shipped it in weakly padded envelopes and the corners were banged up. I even bothered to contact their customer service to ship it with better packaging, to no avail on the replacement item. I then ordered 10 of the damn things, to see what the packaging would do. 4 came in one box, 3 came in another, and 3 came in individual poorly padd…
I'm going to take this opportunity to grind my personal axe: Amazon is extremely lazy about shipping books, throwing them into lightly-padded envelopes. Books shipped from Amazon usually arrive with at least minor cosmetic damage and sometimes much worse. For me this is reason enough to avoid buying books on Amazon.
They do the same to Lego, which sucks because it actually damages the resale value for collectors. Oddly, Lego damages their own stuff too, no way to guarantee uncrushed boxes I guess.
Its ridiculous that something of regular shape, in a regular box, is so difficult not to damage in transit especially from a company like Lego who exist purely on the sentiment parents and children have towards their brand.
On a side note, Amazon really only delivered the coup de grace to independent bookstores. Large chains like Borders, Barnes and Nobles and box stores like Target and Walmart weakened them so much they couldn't compete when Amazon took away their sole advantage: ordering hard-to-find books from small publishers. Had a parent that worked in an independent bookstore. The store couldn't match box stores in price. They ha…