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Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

theguardian.com

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Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#71

Post by activitypea »

Veen wrote: post #33
activitypea wrote: post #18

There are no words for how much this sucks. If you are outside the US/EU, reasonably priced books in english aren't easy to find. CompSci literature in English? Forget it, buddy. Book Depository had decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world. Sure, I have to wait a month and sometimes they have to reship because it got damaged in transport, but if I need a book immediately Library Genesis is…

Probably a bit nitpicky, but there is at least one place outside the US/EU where it is very easy to find books in English.

You're right, let me rephrase.

> I feel like there are no words for how much this sucks for me personally. It seems to me that if you are in most countries outside the US/EU, potentially excluding strong US/EU-adjacent economies such as Canada, UK, and Switzerland (Switzerland technically not being a part of the European Union), books in english can be hard to find for some people. Book Depository had what I consider to be decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world. Sure, I have to wait around a month and sometimes they have to reship because it got damaged, possibly in transport, but if I would like to have a book at that very moment I can use Library Genesis. Books ordered from Book Depository make up a large part of my personal library, with a few exceptions course.

Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#72

Post by activitypea »

open-source-ux wrote: post #31
activitypea wrote: post #18

There are no words for how much this sucks. If you are outside the US/EU, reasonably priced books in english aren't easy to find. CompSci literature in English? Forget it, buddy. Book Depository had decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world. Sure, I have to wait a month and sometimes they have to reship because it got damaged in transport, but if I need a book immediately Library Genesis is…

Book Depository had decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world wordery.com (based in the UK) also gives free worldwide delivery.

Looks neat, but most of the books I have are showing as "currently unavailable" :(

Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#73

Post by barbariangrunge »

activitypea wrote: post #18

There are no words for how much this sucks. If you are outside the US/EU, reasonably priced books in english aren't easy to find. CompSci literature in English? Forget it, buddy. Book Depository had decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world. Sure, I have to wait a month and sometimes they have to reship because it got damaged in transport, but if I need a book immediately Library Genesis is…

It's not so bad. I used to order from book depository in an attempt to use an amazon competitor. Then I found out amazon owns it. Closing it down makes it more obvious to everybody that there is none, not in a really serious way, for online books outside the USA

Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#74

Post by barbariangrunge »

ernsheong wrote: post #3

I'm surprised but not surprised. Books get delivered 2-3 months later, if they ever get delivered at all. Need to contact support for replacement. End up preferring to pay the premium at local booksellers than buying from Book Depo. How do they even make money like this.

I've never had these issues

Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#75

Post by unmole »

From the comments I got:

1. It was a good place to buy English books in non-English speaking countries.

2. The shipping was free (Actually, folded into the price of the book and location dependent)

3. Delivery could take anywhere between a few weeks to months.

I'm wondering if it would be viable to offer an alternative service out of India and I'm willing to try out an experiment: Post the title of a book you would have bought via Book Depository and I'll try to send it out to you for free. Just let me know when the book arrives and in what condition so as to gauge how reliable the postal network is. I don't have a budget in mind but I'd like to ship at least 5 books to different geographies.

Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#76

Post by rvba »

screature2 wrote: post #66
rvba wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Poland there is a whole ecosystem of resellers who sell various books on Allegro (which is basically polish equivalent of Ebay + Amazon). I am not sure exactly how do they get the book info, but it is quite clear that they get the inventory off Amazon, who ships the books to the resellers first, who repack them and send them to direct customers. Of course you can ask, "why not buy at Amazon (or Ebay) directly"? We…

Thank you for sharing a glimpse of the ecosystem in Poland! By the way, Parcel lockers do exist in the US (at least for Amazon package deliveries) https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=... . The US also has Post Office (PO) boxes that you can rent for a nominal fee a month (these are basically lockers for all types of mail including parcels).

Parcel lockers are a very interesting concept. It's generally something quite straightforward - something that stores items for your at a location (and you get an email / SMS notification + can open it via code, or app). The idea probably was invented in many places, but I think Germany had them first. They are incredibly popular in Poland, because they are very reliable. Towns are full of them and in last years, basically even the smaller villages get them.

This all happens at the expense of couriers (who are more expensive) and 'regular' post (who is run by the state and sadly was quite unreliable. In fact it was so unreliable, that they bought a private company just to handle the packages. The bought company called POCZTEX is now very reliable, but 'regular' post used to send mail lost a ton of market share).

I wonder if Amazon copied the idea from Allegro, or possibly German post, or perhaps Korea (who also has them I think?).

Now Poland is a place of an interesting battle, where Inpost parcel lockers have most of the market share and locations, but multiple other service providers (Polish post, Allegro, Amazon, Aliexpress) try to build their own networks. There are of course also multiple courier companies. Normal post office is becoming more and more unprofitable - despite good locations. They deal with the low margin letters. The parcel market has much better margins (even despite being cutthroat).

Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#77

Post by pbj1968 »

rvba wrote: post #76
screature2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing a glimpse of the ecosystem in Poland! By the way, Parcel lockers do exist in the US (at least for Amazon package deliveries) https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=... . The US also has Post Office (PO) boxes that you can rent for a nominal fee a month (these are basically lockers for all types of mail including parcels).

Parcel lockers are a very interesting concept. It's generally something quite straightforward - something that stores items for your at a location (and you get an email / SMS notification + can open it via code, or app). The idea probably was invented in many places, but I think Germany had them first. They are incredibly popular in Poland, because they are very reliable. Towns are full of them and in last years, bas…

US mail has been using parcel lockers in new neighborhoods for decades..

Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#78

Post by willnz »

open-source-ux wrote: post #31
activitypea wrote: post #18

There are no words for how much this sucks. If you are outside the US/EU, reasonably priced books in english aren't easy to find. CompSci literature in English? Forget it, buddy. Book Depository had decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world. Sure, I have to wait a month and sometimes they have to reship because it got damaged in transport, but if I need a book immediately Library Genesis is…

Book Depository had decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world wordery.com (based in the UK) also gives free worldwide delivery.

Seems reasonably similar range, but pricing is definitely higher than BD.

Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#79

Post by gregdoesit »

thomond wrote: post #51
gregdoesit wrote: post #24

I do wonder if Brexit and customs to be paid for all of the EU has anything to do with this decision. Book Depsitory is based in the UK. I have inadvertently ordered from them, to the Netherlands, as they had a “Bookdepository NL” store, which made it seem like they are an EU entity. However, when the book arrived, I was hit by unexpected customs charges that were half the price of the book. Looking at recent reviews…

Are books VAT free in NL? If not that's probably why.

Books are not VAT free. On a €15 book I ended up getting charged €9 for customs: €1 for the reduced VAT for books €6.50 for the customs handling fee €1.50 for VAT on the customs handling fee

So it’s the customs handling fee being added that’s contributed to the price increase. Seems like the Netherlands started to enforce it for even small value orders from the UK.

Re: Amazon to close Book Depository online shop

#80

Post by slyall »

ssijak wrote: post #43
Hamuko wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also deliver worldwide for free. Meanwhile ordering a 13.18€ book from Amazon.de will incure 9.85€ in postage because my closest Amazon is an entire Baltic Sea away. (Well, technically Amazon.de has free deliveries too – you just need to buy order at least 99€ worth of them at once)

"They also deliver worldwide for free.". They calculate shipping in the price. So depending on where you are you will see different price of the book. Still, the only option to get many english books shipped to a big part of the world.

I just checked a book ( The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson in paperback ) for shipping to New Zealand.

Book Depository is $NZ 21.19 total. Including shipping a NZ Tax (GST). Discounted from $24.77

Amazon is $26.27 for the book, $24 for shipping, $7.50 for tax and $1.30 for "Exchange rate guarantee fee". Total is $NZ 59.27 or almost 3x what Book Depository wanted.

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