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.
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.
> 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.
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 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.
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.
