I used to buy my books on bookdepository. Then it was taken over by Amazon so I moved to worldofbooks. Now WOB has changed it‘s pricing strategy and as soon as you change country of delivery to Switzerland you get „Swiss“ prices (VPN doesn‘t help obv). Any suggestions for buying books (old or new) online with delivery to switzerland without getting ripped off?
I normally buy 2nd hand books off ebay.
Free postage. Takes a bit longer to arrive than Book Depository did.
Don’t you end up paying more for postage than the books cost (assuming they are not rare first editions)?¨
Almost everything I buy from ebay ends up with the postage costs being higher than the actual article.
Hmm. Last one I paid £3.36 delivery on a £5 book.
Amazon is my go to, but I can understand why may choose not to order from them. I’ve used Abe Books (also Amazon) and the Strand Book store for sending to family in the States.
You may get lucky on Ricardo: https://www.ricardo.ch/de/c/buecher-82017/?attribute_groups.language=300000019840&page=2
Amazon or eBay - both with shipping to a DHL packstation in Germany
What’s the benefit of getting books shipped to Germany rather than directly?
I use wob but the UK version still works when logging in from CH.
Use:
They also have offers like buy 3 get 1 free. When you arrive at the checkout you’re then charged £1.50 per book for delivery to CH, I find this often works out cheaper than using wob.com with the swiss de URL.
I ordered last time about a month ago so not sure if it’s changed since
Cost - the packstation is free, and I go shopping in DE every week anyhow. Typically, shipping is free to Germany (with amazon), and more people on ebay ship to EU countries than they do to non-EU
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I noticed that the Wordery website is down. A new one is “under construction”.
When they start up again it will be a blank page as far as existing customers are concerned as they say they cannot import previous customer orders etc.
(From all this I can only deduce they are getting Robert from Year 7 to design their new website as part of a school project).
And, crucially, they will only be shipping within the UK (at the start, they say).
Wordery is owned by Waterstones, you’d think they’d be able to do better than that.
Blackwells is now my go-to for books.
Overall I end up spending only a little more than what the behemoth charges. Some books, especially those in current demand, are priced a little higher, but some older/more niche books are a little lower.
Delivery is free, but takes longer. I think three weeks is about average now. Blackwells delivers worldwide.
Blackwells also seems to carry more of the translated books I tend to look for, so that’s a win.
So I might spend a few francs more by avoiding the behemoth, but I sleep better at night.
(And I pray to the deities of literature that the behemoth doesn’t swallow them up…)
Like Wordery, Blackwell’s are also owned by Waterstones.
Not sure whether this is a good thing, or a bad thing.
As Waterstones is still a bricks and mortar book seller in the UK, one would like to think it was fairly immune to Amazon.
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Has anyone used Kennys, the online part of Kennys Bookshop in Galway, Ireland?
They charge 2 Euros for postage per book but these days it’s sometimes not the cheapest option which is important but whether you can get a book you want at all online.
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Something I just stumbled over, on the way to looking for something else:
Galaxus has English books. I guess they really are trying to become the Amazon of Switzerland.
The assortment seems relatively small, but for anyone looking to avoid Amazon, perhaps worth a gander.
Prices seem to be a few francs higher than Amazon - at least for the few titles I took the time to compare.
But you will likely get the order faster from Galaxus.
Just an FYI. Although I’ve ordered plenty of other stuff from Galaxus, I’ve never thought of them for books.
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Interestingly I was walking through the book section of our local Migros the other day and noticed they had a fairly substantial English book section, I’d never seen that before.
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Galaxus is owned by Digitec, which is owned by Migros.
Bider and Tanner?
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