Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book

pagesonpages.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 303 posts

Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book

#261

Post by mynameisvlad »

wink wrote: post #230
MrGilbert wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another German here. I don’t know… Buchpreisbindung sucks when it comes to eBooks. It would be awesome if you could get the eBook at a reduced price if you have the physical copy.

Isn't that 100% on the authors/publishers? Such deals exist, bundling the ebook version for technical books. Might be misremembering, but some authors (of tech books, fwiw) always were happy for that feature. But then again they usually don't live off the royalties, but are developers/consultants anyway.

Amazon did this for a bit with some of their physical books, especially if bought from their retail stores. Looks like they shuttered this system in 2019: https://the-digital-reader.com/2019/09/30/amazon-is-shutting...

They do offer a discounted Audible book if you own the eBook: https://www.amazon.com/hz/audible/matchmaker

Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book

#263

Post by logifail »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #255
logifail wrote: post #225

(Sorry for sounding like a stuck record but) This site appears to use affiliate links/cookies/Google Analytics, so is surely collecting personal data in the GDPR sense? If so, why is there no opt-in/opt-out screen? The whole "ask for forgiveness not permission" thing is getting pretty old, why is it still apparently OK to build a shiny thing, make it live, and then think about compliance with the law?

Developed by people outside the enforcement of the EU? The law may technically apply, but how enforceable is it against a foreign national with no EU assets?

> The law may technically apply, but how enforceable is it against a foreign national with no EU assets?

Q: Shouldn't we all aim a little higher than "this law may well apply but isn't enforceable due to X"?

Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book

#264

Post by logifail »

shnksi wrote: post #234
shnksi wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site actually doesn't use cookies internally only session and local storage to hold variables through visits. I'm not based in Europe so I'm not entirely familiar with GDPR and how it relates to affiliate linking and google analytics. Thanks for pointing this out, I'll be sure to do some research and fix up the site to accommodate it.

I'm never holding PII at all except when you sign up to email updates

My $0.02 is that:

If you're using Google Analytics to track visitors, you need their permission beforehand.

If you're tracking visitors uniquely so that click-throughs to merchants earn you revenue via affiliate schemes, you need their permission for that, too.

See https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/82133/are-auto-gener...

Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book

#267

Post by aaronhand »

I use bigwords.com which works well and has quite a bit more features like ISBN searches, selling/buying, shipping cost, book condition, book type (electronic, international version, etc), bundling multiple book purchases, etc. It was originally for textbooks, but I find that it works for any book.

Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book

#268

Post by gadders »

PinguTS wrote: post #256
gadders wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Enabling poor people to buy books is a far greater social good than having somewhere comfortable for hipsters to sit with their laptops and middle class mums to push their three wheeled buggies round.

Actually, you don't need to own a book to read it. We in Germany have a great concept for this, its called: Library, You can go to your local community library and decide to either read the book there or to take it home and read it where ever you like. The rent for the first 2 weeks or sometimes the first 4 weeks is free of charge. These libraries these days even not only have books to rent out. They have online-book…

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33149867

Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book

#269

Post by 3qz »

socialismisok wrote: post #64

Is "cheapest" the right objective? Because if that's the case, book piracy seems like the clear winner. But maybe we should consider "cheapest with some boundaries". For instance, we probably agree that bookstores are nice for a myriad of reasons, even if we don't frequent them. They employ people in the area, they offer curation and recommendations, they invite speakers and host events, and they help local authors g…

Small book stores are one of the least deserving businesses I can think of. They are no different from drop shippers or amazon resellers. These people buy things they had no responsibility creating and sell it to you for a higher price, injecting themselves as middle men to a transaction where it’s not required and then justifying it with a hobby job they made up themselves. The author gets nothing if the book is used so there’s no reason not to pirate. Cheapest is a great metric when you’re dealing with books.

Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book

#270

Post by solatic »

shnksi wrote: post #37
thangalin wrote: post #33

Good start! Not quite the cheapest, though! https://i.ibb.co/bF8nVjV/gone-with-the-wind.png * AbeBooks: $2.87 * PagesOnPages: $4.17 Disclaimer: I worked at AbeBooks over a decade ago.

The prices on Pages on Pages include shipping costs, I probably should be more clear about that on the page itself. Thanks :)

Shipping is really difficult to get right, particularly across international boundaries, when you also need to include the price of customs.

Here in Israel, personal imports under $75 are customs-free and VAT-free, and with Amazon US granting free shipping for orders over $49, I typically just bundle 2-3 books into the same order to get into the "magic" range, where the total price is cheaper than it is for most Americans in the US (no sales tax). I have a very difficult time believing any other site could beat that pricing.

Post reply on HN