[HN Gopher] Amazon to close Book Depository online shop
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Amazon to close Book Depository online shop
Author : daviddavis
Score : 163 points
Date : 2023-04-04 13:55 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| Aissen wrote:
| They are often cheaper than Amazon in the marketplace, and have a
| very good reputation. A bit of shame :-/
| Hamuko wrote:
| They also deliver worldwide for free. Meanwhile ordering a
| 13.18EUR book from Amazon.de will incure 9.85EUR 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 99EUR worth of them at once)
| ssijak wrote:
| "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.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Well, "extremely cheap" shipping then. I had that 13.18EUR
| Amazon.de book pre-ordered on Book Depository for 14.00EUR.
| So the Amazon.de delivery is 12 times the cost of the Book
| Depository shipping cost.
|
| Had to order it from a local retailer instead since it
| releases in June, where it cost me 16.10EUR with shipping.
| slyall wrote:
| 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.
| newbie578 wrote:
| Definitely disappointed, I used them regularly for the last 6/7
| years, ordered from them over 70 books and this feels like a
| punch in the gut. My country is not served by Amazon Prime, so
| basically for a single book I have to pay a delivery fee of 10
| euros... While on the other hand Book Depository offered a free
| delivery, although you waited a month or two.
|
| Shame, it really sucks, never should have allowed Amazon to buy
| them.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Library Genesis knows no borders
| xjrp wrote:
| Good, of 4 books I ordered in two different order I received one.
| It was so poorly packed...
| rapfaria wrote:
| AbeBooks next?
| rcarr wrote:
| This does suck for obvious reasons, but I also think we need to
| get a good, thin, eInk tablet like Remarkable or Boox Note down
| to the sub 100 usd/gbp price. Kindles are ok but they're too
| small for textbooks and you're also locked into Amazon. Plus
| they're read only (apart from the latest one), and the new
| generation of tablets around atm can serve as paper like
| notebooks as well as eReaders. I like reading paper books as much
| as the next guy but it is hard to justify sending millions of
| books each year all over the world when we could send them over
| the wire for a fraction of the cost and pollution.
| rvba wrote:
| Until they decide to retroactively delete your book, or change
| the text, because someone didnt like it.
|
| Or more prosaic "feature": ban the book in your region.
| rcarr wrote:
| Well if it's in a proprietary format, then sure. But if it's
| not then no, they can't do that. And it's not like paper
| books haven't been subjected to regional bans and text
| changes (see the recent roald Dahl news) so I don't know what
| you're getting at there. People can still import paper books
| regardless and people can get around digital restrictions
| through things like VPNs, torrents and what not also. There's
| nothing stopping someone from sending a usb stick with an
| entire library of books into a country either and arguably a
| lot easier than sending one paperback as you could hide a usb
| in anything.
| almog wrote:
| Hopefully this will put regulator on track to pursue anti trust
| when Amazon attempts similar acquisitions in the future.
| jcmontx wrote:
| This breaks my heart. I've found so many books which are
| imposible to find in my country.
| _trackno5 wrote:
| Goddammit, I had no idea Amazon owned Book Depository. Their
| service was great and it was the best way I had to buy technical
| books when i lived in Brazil.
| mabbo wrote:
| Seems a simple plan to address a competitor.
|
| Buy it. Invest nothing major into it. Wait for the economy to
| take a downturn and shut it down because it isn't profitable.
| activitypea wrote:
| 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 right there. Book
| Depository built out my home library for both fiction and non-
| fiction, and I will miss it dearly. Salute o7
| TylerE wrote:
| Sucks for some of us in the US too. Many of the niche military
| history books I buy come from BD.
|
| PS: Print tech books are dead in the US anyway. They're out of
| date before they're ever edited, never mind hitting paper.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| 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
| rvba wrote:
| 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"? Well, for
| many years Amazon was simply not available in Poland, it also
| required a full credit card (not only a debit card), while
| Allegro allows many more payment systems.
|
| I tried buying some really obscure books on Amazon - and the
| interface is pure garbage. When I looked for random items,
| those often looked like cheap knock-offs?
|
| Generally once per year I try to look at various "best books of
| 2022" lists [did hacker news have one?] and then try to get the
| obscure books. Often it feels easier (but not cheaper) to get
| them through those third party sellers than search on Amazon
| that offers 10 options of used books, semi-used books, PDFs - I
| genuinely dont know how to exclude the things that I dont want.
|
| This reminds me how EBAY tried to enter the Polish market and
| their launch was so damn bad and the website so damn poor, that
| after 2 years they licked their wounds and simply exited the
| market.
|
| I wish more people know Allegro, which has its own share of
| problems, but is so much better (I think most problems came
| when venture capital came, bought it and now tries to squeeze
| money out of it).
|
| In Poland you buy something on Allegro and usually in 1-2 days
| you get it to a parcel locker machine. Which is like a machine
| that stores the packages for you in a safe way. I never
| understood why those dont exist in USA. As I understand the
| delivery drivers throw the packages on your garden, where they
| can be stolen, damaged by rain or so on.
|
| I think Germany also has parcel lockers + the concept was
| introduced to UK due to all the Polish diaspora (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_locker ), but when it
| comes to number of machines per capita Poland probably wins.
| screature2 wrote:
| 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/cus
| tomer/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).
| rvba wrote:
| 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).
| pbj1968 wrote:
| US mail has been using parcel lockers in new
| neighborhoods for decades..
| mopsi wrote:
| Is there any notification via email or SMS? "Decades"
| suggest that they are just physical lockers that you have
| to go and manually check for mail. We have these too in
| rural areas, where delivery to every single farmhouse is
| too expensive and time-consuming. But modern parcel
| lockers are different. They are networked computers
| connected to solenoids that operate door locks. You get a
| code via mail or SMS when a parcel arrives, and when you
| go pick it up, you enter the code and a door
| automatically unlocks and opens.
|
| Sending a parcel is similar: you can prepare a shipping
| label at home and print it out. When you arrive at a
| locker, you just scan label's barcode, a door opens, and
| you pop your parcel in there. Or you can prepare the
| label at the parcel machine, it will print out a sticker
| for your parcel. Stick it on, scan the code, door opens,
| put your parcel there.
|
| A standard parcel locker looks like this:
| https://i.imgur.com/X5Gj4JQ.jpg
|
| Different size doors are for small / medium / large
| parcels. Center section has touchscreen, payment card
| reader, barcode scanner and a printer for shipping labels
| and receipts.
|
| Such parcel lockers have been around for approximately 15
| years, but usage exploded somewhat later.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _" Decades" suggest that they are just physical lockers
| that you have to go and manually check for mail._
|
| The USPS parcel lockers were around long before the
| internet. Back then when you had a package, the postman
| would stick a sticky note to your door to let you know to
| go pick it up.
|
| Today, the USPS will email you a list of all the mail and
| packages with photos you are getting that day.
|
| It doesn't notify you upon delivery, unless the sender
| requests it. But once you have the package ID number
| (which comes with the email), you can put it into any
| number of free or paid apps that will alert you
| immediately upon delivery.
|
| _A standard parcel locker looks like
| this:https://i.imgur.com/X5Gj4J_
|
| The one you show looks like a bog-standard parcel locker
| operated by any of dozens of delivery companies, office
| buildings, apartment buildings and retail stores around
| the country for years and years.
|
| Nothing special. Here's the USPS version, which has been
| around since 2011:
| https://gopost.usps.com/media/images/gp/USPS-gopost-
| unit.png
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Which is like a machine that stores the packages for you in
| a safe way. I never understood why those dont exist in USA._
|
| They do exist, and have existed since at least 2010, when I
| first used one.
|
| There are many thousands of them in cities big and small.
| Many are run by Amazon, but not all.
|
| I can think of six locations within a few blocks of my home.
| Veen wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| Britain, Australia, and India would be my guesses. And Canada
| if we haven't annexed it yet.
| bathtub365 wrote:
| I know of at least two off the top of my head: UK and Canada.
| activitypea wrote:
| 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.
| electroagenda wrote:
| What about abebooks?
| adolph wrote:
| _An "extraordinary and unprecedented" global protest from
| antiquarian booksellers has forced the Amazon-owned
| secondhand marketplace AbeBooks to backtrack on its decision
| to pull out of several countries._
|
| _AbeBooks had told bookshops in countries including Hungary,
| the Czech Republic, South Korea and Russia that it would no
| longer support them from 30 November, citing migration to a
| new payment service provider as the reason for the
| withdrawal. The move prompted almost 600 booksellers in 27
| countries to pull more than 3.5m titles from Abebooks' site,
| putting them on "vacation" as they cited the motto of the
| International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, "Amor
| librorum nos unit" (love of books unites us)._
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/08/amazon-
| abebook...
| dublinben wrote:
| Some online booksellers that aren't quietly owned by Amazon
| include:
|
| * Alibris (aggregator like AbeBooks)
|
| * Better World Books (B Corp)
|
| * ThriftBooks
|
| * Bookshop.org (benefits local bookstores)
|
| You can also connect directly to nearby independent
| booksellers on https://www.indiebound.org/
| StrangeATractor wrote:
| Bookmarked all of them, thank you.
| ornornor wrote:
| Thank you. It's very hard to escape amazon and not feed the
| monster.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Also: biblio.com
|
| I think it's run out of Charlotte.
| lancesells wrote:
| Amazon owns it so who knows how much longer that stays
| around.
| nottorp wrote:
| abebooks too?
|
| <drops into depression>
| brutusurp wrote:
| It's really bad. We probably want to not have monopolies
| like Amazon moving forward. So much so that we could
| probably pass laws to prevent it. Just in case we forget.
| nottorp wrote:
| Pretty sure the US has laws about it. But their
| interpretation has changed since the famous AT&T breakup.
| user-4-4-2023 wrote:
| +100
|
| I'm really pissed off. I live in Europe outside EU and this is
| the most convenient way to get books in English. Often a
| translated book does not exist here at all, so Book Depository
| was a blessing in these situations.
|
| Seems like nothing is sacred to the corporate quarterly
| reports. If a corporation made a little less profit this year
| compared to the last one (did not have losses!), it apparently
| justifies shutting down an online book store that ships a ton
| of titles at reasonable prices with free shipping to 160
| countries in the world!
| notyourwork wrote:
| > I live in Europe outside EU
|
| I had to think on this portion of your comment for a moment.
| It's obvious in hindsight but the first time I've ever heard
| it phrased in this way.
| netcyrax wrote:
| I located in the EU, but from a small country, and still Book
| Depository was the only way to get English books at a
| reasonable price.
| perch56 wrote:
| I'm inside the EU (Ireland) and "reasonably priced books in
| English aren't easy to find" unless you're buying pre-owned
| books and in most cases I can't find what I'm looking for
| specially when it comes to tech books. As an island, we're very
| much dependent on Amazon.co.uk for books.
| maleno wrote:
| They don't have everything when it comes to tech or more
| niche material, but Kenny's (https://www.kennys.ie/) is very
| good and offers free (and often fast) shipping.
| shever73 wrote:
| If you're in Dublin then Chapters has a fantastic, on-going
| (closing down, perhaps?) sale on fiction. I can't find books
| cheaper on Amazon than there. For tech books, I get the ISBN
| from Amazon and then order them from Books Upstairs. It is
| more expensive, but not excessively so.
| whoknowswho wrote:
| While Book Depository definitely had some of the lowest
| prices, I wouldn't say we're very much dependent on Amazon -
| I've found that almost everything I've looked for can be
| found in a handful of bookshops around Ireland (Chapters,
| Kennys, Charlie Byrnes, Easons, Books Upstairs, Vibes and
| Scribes) - it's been a good few years since I've had to rely
| on book depository for a book
| Y_Y wrote:
| https://www.bigwords.com/
|
| That strange site helped me get tons of books for college.
| open-source-ux wrote:
| _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.
| activitypea wrote:
| Looks neat, but most of the books I have are showing as
| "currently unavailable" :(
| willnz wrote:
| Seems reasonably similar range, but pricing is definitely
| higher than BD.
| n2j3 wrote:
| You can at least export your wishlist to a table-laden html file
| @ https://www.bookdepository.com/account/wishlist/print
| shever73 wrote:
| It's a pity they were ever acquired by Amazon. I managed to get
| some quite obscure stuff from Book Depository before they were
| assimilated.
| L0in wrote:
| NOOO. C'MON... WTF AMAZON
| McDyver wrote:
| Amazon seems to be following Microsoft's EEE strategy (https://en
| .wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...), skipping
| the Extend
| shever73 wrote:
| Even the "Embrace" is a bit like the embrace of a sarlacc.
| lucasmullens wrote:
| EEE is about extending open standards in a way that
| extinguishes the competition, since they can't keep up. Amazon
| buying a competitor and shutting it down might be monopolistic,
| but it's not EEE.
| manicennui wrote:
| This is every big tech company for the last couple decades.
| They buy up their competitors or potential competitors and
| either immediately or eventually shut them down. I'm sure this
| will lead to great things.
| paol wrote:
| Wow, didn't see this coming. Though, in retrospect, it's not
| obvious what value Amazon was getting from running a parallel
| store.
|
| As a customer this sucks. The website was a much better
| experience than amazon, and the free shipping everywhere was
| nice.
| yardie wrote:
| It took longer than I thought. Amazon bought TBD over a decade
| ago. I figured they would have snuffed them out years ago. It was
| a sad day when they got bought by Amazon. Good luck to the team.
| keb_ wrote:
| In case anyone cares, I started looking for online bookseller
| alternatives to Amazon a while ago, and have generally enjoyed
| shopping with Alibris.
| ernsheong wrote:
| 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.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I've never had that issue. My pre-orders usually arrive within
| a couple of weeks of release date.
|
| Too bad that I have a pre-order for a June release with them.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| I've never had these issues
| ycombinete wrote:
| This is really weird, where are you having the books delivered
| to?
|
| I've never once had this experience and I've ordered at least
| 100 books from the book depository, for delivery to the Middle
| East.
| is_true wrote:
| Same here, I'm from South America and I've never had a
| problem
| unmole wrote:
| 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.
| jnsie wrote:
| This really sucks. Use to ship books to family in Ireland and
| Britain. Amazon with an ever tightening stranglehold :-(
| masfuerte wrote:
| I use speedyhen for books in the UK. They are usually as cheap
| as Amazon and delivery is free. I don't know if they'll accept
| orders from abroad though.
| arnoldjm wrote:
| From their FAQ "Do you deliver overseas?": "We are delighted
| to say we now offer worldwide shipping." But it ain't cheap.
| gregdoesit wrote:
| 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, there was a surge of these complaints from all customers
| in the Netherlands [1]
|
| Perhaps the timing on these customs surges are accidental, of
| course. But I can't imagine that Brexit helped with their EU
| sales.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz/status/1638824647390003206
| Hamuko wrote:
| I've never ever had to pay VAT at the customs for Book
| Depository orders in Finland. My most recent order came in
| March and I had a pre-order for June.
| thomond wrote:
| Are books VAT free in Finland? They are in the UK and Ireland
| so I have never had customs either (in Ireland). Perhaps they
| are not VAT free in NL.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Books are in the lowered VAT category of 10%. There's very
| few things in Finland that are actually VAT free.
|
| Ebooks used to be in the general VAT category of 24% but I
| think they've fixed that now.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| I haven't in Norway either, but books are exempt from VAT.
| thomond wrote:
| Are books VAT free in NL? If not that's probably why.
| gregdoesit wrote:
| Books are not VAT free. On a EUR15 book I ended up getting
| charged EUR9 for customs: EUR1 for the reduced VAT for books
| EUR6.50 for the customs handling fee EUR1.50 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.
| koboll wrote:
| I wonder if Goodreads is next under the guillotine.
| LiveTheDream wrote:
| You can request your data here
| https://www.goodreads.com/user/edit?ref=nav_profile_settings
|
| They will send a confirmation email. After you click the link
| to confirm, it says "We will provide your information to you as
| soon as we can. Usually, this should take no more than a
| month."
|
| EDIT: you can export your book database as CSV (shelves,
| ratings, reviews, etc) here
| https://www.goodreads.com/review/import (there's a link towards
| the top to export...disregard that the URL says "import".
| ZunarJ5 wrote:
| For those who need to hear it, Bookwyrm is a good alternative
| to Goodreads and you can import your csv!
| bongobingo1 wrote:
| Can it reasonably take a month to export the data from
| Goodreads? I barely use it but from what I recall its
| basically lists of will-read and have-read right?
|
| Is that delay strictly a "cooling off" sort of tactic?
| LiveTheDream wrote:
| I assume this data export includes much more than just the
| book data (which I just discovered you can get immediately
| as CVS via https://www.goodreads.com/review/import) which
| might be part of a compliance requirement.
| stanac wrote:
| Hopefully not, maybe someone should scrape everything from
| there. I didn't know amazon owned book depo, maybe I should
| have guessed something has changed when they starting sending
| increased number of marketing emails a year or two ago.
|
| edit: typo
| hgsgm wrote:
| Goodreads is an ad for Amazon. BD was a redundant store.
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