Exellence and selection, a bookbuyers heaven!
by lylah_c - Written: Jan 16 '02 (Updated Oct 08 '04)
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UPDATE: October 7, 2004:
ok, Amazon still has the best selection anywhere but lately I have been noticing a trend which is making this store a bit less attractive in my book. (no pun intended)
One thing I failed to mention in my review below, is the free shipping policy. Most of the time at Amazon orders over 25 dollars get free shipping, which in my case is a real savings as I live in Alaska. This made it extremely competitive with my local bookstores. I could order books for the same price and actually get them before the local bookseller would get the books in via special order from them.
This is no longer the case. Oh, they still have the free shipping BUT they have began to put those orders at a lower priority than other shipping methods so it can actually take a week or two to ship the order. This also means that if you order a book where there are only two left, sometimes you might find that because of your shipping priority, you might have to wait for the next shipment to come in, holding up your whole order in the process.
This little glitch most often causes an order that might have taken a week to get to me before, to take two weeks or longer now losing that edge over the local bookstore which pretty much takes 2 weeks to get a book in.
I still recommend this bookstore but I have to say, if you want/need your books fast, you should go ahead and shell out the premium shipping or you will have a hefty wait.
Lylah
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I began buying at Amazon.com about 2 years ago. At first, I bought there just when my local bookstore didn't carry something I wanted, but due to my local bookstore going downhill in the service department and Amazon.com's ease of use, I now almost always go to Amazon.com before anywhere else. (for books)
First thing that sets it apart from my local book store is the massive selection. It seems that just about any book I can ask about is there. I have spent a great deal of money in that store and there were only 2 books I have ordered from them that weren't in stock and ready to send me immediately, aside from pre-ordered new releases. Both were way off mainstream books in which the delay was from the publisher's end NOT Amazons. Amazon would be a bookbuyers heaven just for that but they don't stop there.
The second great thing about Amazon is the ease of use of their site! If they carryed all the books in the whole world it wouldn't matter if you couldnt find them. Their search engine is amazing. You can search by title or author. One drawback of their search engine, however, is that the results are given in a rather disorganised manner. Another is that you cannot search by series name. In other words, if you wanted to find all the books in The Young Wizards series, you would have to search by author name and then sort through everything they carry by that author. It is a minor inconvenience at worst however and sometimes you find interesting books that way you wouldn't have seen otherwise.
The third cool thing about Amazon is their recomendations. If you have shopped with them before, and your browser accepts cookies, you will find that when you go there to shop, Amazon will have personalised recomendations just for you. You can fine tune your recomendations in several ways as well. You can also track your orders from your account page and rate/review books you already have as well.
The help features on this website are quite extensive as well, making it easy to find out what you need to know and if that still doesn't help, you can easily contact a very efficient customer service department to get the help you need.
Returns are also easy at Amazon. All you have to do is go to the website and it will walk you through the return process in minutes. You can even print out a shipping label to use in your return. There is only one online store I have ever used with easier returns.
Amazon is such an easy place to shop that I rarely go to my local bookstore anymore. I mean, why should I drive 15 miles to a bookstore that may or may not have what I want when I can go into my office and within minutes get what I want.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? I probably buy at least 600 dollars worth of books a year here.
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