Waterstones have finally ditched their link with Amazon, and set up their own online operation. It looks good, the range is much wider than even their biggest shops can stock, you can have books delivered to your nearest shop and return them there for a refund, and it's free delivery over £15. And - praise be - it doesn't try and sell you electric kettles or lego sets alongside. You can even get signed copies, and there is some 'inside the book' material and so on.

It's being 'soft' launched to make sure it all works smoothly before a proper launch later in the year, but it's fully up and running. Unless you have a terrific independent bookshop nearby, it seems to me a good way of getting at all those the titles your local W H Smith isn't going to stock.

Waterstones Online

Emma

Hey that's great. I only have a 'Sussex Bookshops and stationers' nearby, and they don't stock a great deal of books. Mind you the ones they do have are quite cheap.

I don't think Amazon are that cheap though, I recently went into my local independent record shop, and asked about a CD, which Amazon were selling for £14.99. They ordered it for me, it came the next day, and was only £8.99

Katerina

Thanks for this, Emma. I was made aware of it a few weeks ago (I think by Roger) and yes, it looks really good. They look to be pricing everything fairly - without going down the Tesco et al give-away route. And, quite frankly, anyone who stocks this or this must be worth a look.



Nik.

Quite! Clearly a website with excellent taste!

Kat, no, I think you certainly can't assume Amazon are all that cheap. Though for some reason they have my laser printer cartridges miles cheaper than anyone else, and having secured my free delivery with that, I do sometimes add in CDs, as I don't have a good classical CD shop anywhere near. But I very rarely buy books from them.

Emma

Not to mention the wonderful people who stock this or this

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A
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Great to see you there, Anne. Doesn't Pink Champagne look handsome in those surroundings! I do think the site looks very nice: smart, uncluttered, not intimidating but professional. Unlike Amazon, which gets more like the bargain basement of a pound store everytime I drop by.

Worth mentioning here that Foyles also have a good transactional website, and any Society of Auathors members using it can still get their 15% discount: ages ago I emailed to ask how, and I think the answer was to quote your membership number somewhere on the online form.

Emma

Thanks, Emma! Actually, I got lost in Foyle's once many years ago and I think a part of me is still in there trying to find the way out ...

Help me! Help me, someone!

==:O

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<Added>

Foyles? Foyle's? I can't think which it is!! I must have floating apostrophe-itis at the moment!!!

It's true that Amazon isn't always the cheapest option but in general I find it to be the case. Particularly when it comes to books.

I do get the feeling from time to time that the pricing of certain items depends on the customer.

Recently I bought Lian Hearn's The Harsh Cry of the Heron. On Amazon it was advertised at 12.49. The price then went down to 8.49 (when I visited the page without being logged in) I then recieved an email from Amazon with an offer to buy it at 10.99. If I clicked on the link it took me to the page and the price was indeed 10.99.

This has happened on a few occasions. Prices also vary wildly from day to day with no set pattern. So I often check at least once a day.

Geoff

What amazes me is how many online opportunities for buying books there are these days. If you froogle almost any title, you will see places like play.com, tesco.com, dvd.com, and then English Heritage, plus newspapers like the Telegraph, publications like Elle and She and God knows what else. Somebody else must run the bookshops for them - probably in partnership with amazon??? I dunno. Then on amazon there are all those marketplace sellers who are flogging the same title at a fraction of the price. Apparently it is because they can keep their overheads down, not because they are selling knocked off stock. Oh yeah, right.

Apparently it is because they can keep their overheads down, not because they are selling knocked off stock. Oh yeah, right.

Well, I think sometimes it is - the margins are so narrow, but so are their costs. On the other hand, there is a big issue with 'leakage' from book warehouses, so some is, well... But either way, it beats me why it's worth charging more for something they claim is 'as new', than Amazon do for something genuinely brand new.

Emma

Thanks Emma, that's great, now I can choose between play.com, amazon and waterstones. When you don't live in the UK, you don't get to hear about these things so much. And on-line ordering keeps me sane...