Alternative to amazon.com?

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Alternative to amazon.com?

Post by Clock Watcher »

Is there another book/DVD retailer that will ship to Canada, but do not have the outrageous shipping & "brokerage" charges of amazon.com? With the loonie at better than parity, I can't justify the prices at chapters.ca and amazon.ca.

BTW, I wonder if it makes sense to start a thread on "how to benefit from a high loonie"?
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

Post by Bylo Selhi »

FWIW I've noticed that recently it's become cheaper to buy from amazon.ca than amazon.com, especially if you buy over $39 and qualify for free shipping. Perhaps you can post counterexamples. See also Amazon.com/Amazon.ca.
if it makes sense to start a thread on "how to benefit from a high loonie"?
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

Post by Shakespeare »

You can try Barnes and Noble or Borders. I think I've ordered stuff from B&N in the past.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Bylo Selhi wrote:Perhaps you can post counterexamples.
Just recently I was looking at The Big Short (amazon.com - US$15.37, amazon.ca CDN$17.50). Assuming dollar parity, that is 14% higher.

Another one I was going to buy was Liar's Poker paperback (amazon.com - $10.85, amazon.ca $14.60). 35% higher.

I am not cherry picking, those were the 2 books I was going to buy (but didn't because of the higher prices). In general my quick observation is that over 90% of the books/blu-rays are more expensive on amazon.ca/chapters.ca than amazon.com. BTW the loonie is worth more than the USD at this moment.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Clock Watcher wrote:Just recently I was looking at The Big Short (amazon.com - US$15.37, amazon.ca CDN$17.50). Assuming dollar parity, that is 14% higher.
I base my prices on the bottom line, including taxes and delivery charges. That's only fair since it lets us make apples to apples comparisons.

Until recently amazon.com used some sort of loophole to sell books to Canadians without charging GST/PST (where applicable) and brokerage fees. That gave them an unfair advantage over Chapters and even their own amazon.ca. I confess that I made liberal use of that loophole. But now that amazon.com charges GST/PST and brokerage their delivered prices are higher than amazon.ca and I've started buying from .ca instead of .com.
BTW the loonie is worth more than the USD at this moment.
And yesterday it was significantly lower than the greenback. Publishers and retailers insert some slack into their pricing because of such fluctuations and because of the lead times they need to replenish inventory. Considering how old Liar's Poker is, it's possibly Amazon's inventory of copies was purchased a year or more ago when the loonie was a lot, lot lower than it is today.

I'm not saying that book prices shouldn't be less out of whack than they are, only that there are legitimate reasons for them to appear to be out of whack.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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I think if we are to compare 'apples to apples', then it should be the cost of amazon.com delivering to American customers, vs amazon.ca delivering to Canadian customers. In that case, both get free shipping above a certain threshold, so it is only the price of the books themselves that are relevant. I still think we are being ripped off. 2% difference, possibly acceptable. 14% or 35%, not at all, not with the currencies at parity.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Clock Watcher wrote:I think if we are to compare 'apples to apples', then it should be the cost of amazon.com delivering to American customers, vs amazon.ca delivering to Canadian customers. In that case, both get free shipping above a certain threshold, so it is only the price of the books themselves that are relevant.
Not that I concede the point, but you forgot sales taxes which vary from state to state and province to province. What state would you use to compare to your province? Why?
I still think we are being ripped off. 2% difference, possibly acceptable. 14% or 35%, not at all, not with the currencies at parity.
As I said before you can't expect retailers to adjust prices daily according to exchange rate fluctuations. Well you can, but I don't (for the reasons I gave.)
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

Post by investnoob »

You can try the bookdepository.com

I believe they are based out of the UK, and have free international shipping.

Edit: I just checked their site and they explain that intenational orders are being postponed until the volcanoe issue blows over. But, it's worth visiting their site. It's not quite as well mapped out as amazon's site but it's still pretty good.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Bylo Selhi wrote:
Clock Watcher wrote:I think if we are to compare 'apples to apples', then it should be the cost of amazon.com delivering to American customers, vs amazon.ca delivering to Canadian customers. In that case, both get free shipping above a certain threshold, so it is only the price of the books themselves that are relevant.
Not that I concede the point, but you forgot sales taxes which vary from state to state and province to province. What state would you use to compare to your province? Why?
I am not sure it matters, because I assume no state has a sales tax of 14% (or 35%!).

Bylo Selhi wrote:
I still think we are being ripped off. 2% difference, possibly acceptable. 14% or 35%, not at all, not with the currencies at parity.
As I said before you can't expect retailers to adjust prices daily according to exchange rate fluctuations. Well you can, but I don't (for the reasons I gave.)
I don't believe daily adjustment is the issue here, because 14% and 35% differences are long past any reasonable grace period.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Clock Watcher wrote:I don't believe daily adjustment is the issue here, because 14% and 35% differences are long past any reasonable grace period.
Really? Less than a year ago the loonie was at $0.85 and dropping. Now it's at par. 100/85 is an 18% increase. But I'm done arguing. There are far more important issues than whether a book should sell for $18 or $20 because the loonie soared.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Would it not be fair to also say that Amazon.ca and Chapters may have bought these books with a lower Canadian dollar? Their cost basis needs to be considered when they set their prices, not the current dollar value.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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That's what I tried to tell him upthread :(
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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augustabound wrote:Would it not be fair to also say that Amazon.ca and Chapters may have bought these books with a lower Canadian dollar? Their cost basis needs to be considered when they set their prices, not the current dollar value.
That may be true but it's a stupid way for a business to think. Once the dollar changed they already had a loss. It's just a question of when and how they realize it. It's like people who hold on to a declining stock thinking they only have a real loss when they sell, for now it's just a paper loss :roll: .

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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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newguy wrote:That may be true but it's a stupid way for a business to think. Once the dollar changed they already had a loss. It's just a question of when and how they realize it.
Depends on the business. Booksellers carry a lot of older inventory because, other than a few top-xx bestsellers, individual titles turn over slowly. Moreover books are relatively low-priced products so most people don't get too exercised about a $1 or $3 difference, especially if they need the book now. It may be that the bookseller's best strategy is to "buy and hold" (in a manner of speaking.)

Contrast with sellers of certain commodities, perishables, high-ticket items, etc. who have stronger pressures to adjust their prices to currency fluctuations. Even then, grocery stores don't adjust the price of tomatoes every day to reflect currency rates. Nor did car sellers until the disparity became too large for (a still small minority of) their customers to ignore. OTOH the price of gasoline fluctuates daily to reflect the market price of oil and the exchange rate.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Another thing booksellers probably have, is guaranteed sales. IOW if they don't sell a book, they can send it back to the publisher. Why then would they lower prices? The publisher should offer to lower them.

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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

Post by Dennis »

Sounds like the oil companies. In a declining price market they talk about recovering the cost of the inventory in stock. In a rising price market they talk about the cost of replacing inventory.

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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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investnoob wrote:You can try the bookdepository.com
Thank you, that looks very promising. Prices are comparable to amazon.com, free shipping to Canada, and payment in Canadian dollars so I avoid the credit card FX charge. I am going to try an order and see how it works out in practice.

I believe that the loonie will stay above parity for an extended period of time (decade?). If so, it will be interesting to revisit this thread in a years time, and see if prices reflect that. In the mean time, this site appears to offer an excellent alternative to amazon.com, amazon.ca & chapters.ca.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Clock Watcher wrote:
investnoob wrote:You can try the bookdepository.com
Thank you, that looks very promising. Prices are comparable to amazon.com, free shipping to Canada, and payment in Canadian dollars so I avoid the credit card FX charge. I am going to try an order and see how it works out in practice.
I've used these guys, and I recommend them. There's a .co.uk site and a .com site - which sometimes give different search results. I think the site sets cookies that make it more difficult to move from one side to the other.

I bought several yellow Michelin maps at ~£3.50 each, including shipping - which is a real deal compared to Amazon. I split my order into two to stay below the $20 tax threshold - but they shipped each map in its own padded envelope with its own receipt :) (even though all the maps would have fitted into one envelope). Delivery was about a week from order. I ordered and paid in £ - so I don't know whether a C$ order would be billed directly in C$, or billed in £ and converted by your friendly CC co into C$.

I also bought a book indirectly from them via Amazon.ca's "New and Used from..." link. Usually these books are in the US - but this one was at the Book Depository. It was subject to Amazon's standard shipping - about $5-6 IIRC - and worked out cheaper priced this way than from the Book Depository's own site :shock:.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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pmj wrote:There's a .co.uk site and a .com site - which sometimes give different search results. I think the site sets cookies that make it more difficult to move from one side to the other.
Try using Chrome's Incognito (or Firefox's similar) feature. It should let you open separate tabs without this nuisance.
I bought several yellow Michelin maps at ~£3.50 each, including shipping - which is a real deal compared to Amazon.
One of the reasons why FX fluctuations don't faze me so much is that often there are other more significant factors at play. I needed some Austrian topo maps to plan a hiking trip a few years ago. Only amazon.de carried them. I ended up paying more for the shipping and handling to Canada than for the maps themselves because I wanted them before the trip. I could have had them shipped to someone in Austria for a lot, lot less.
I also bought a book indirectly from them via Amazon.ca's "New and Used from..." link. Usually these books are in the US - but this one was at the Book Depository. It was subject to Amazon's standard shipping - about $5-6 IIRC - and worked out cheaper priced this way than from the Book Depository's own site :shock:
I've noticed this also with eBay. Sometimes a vendor's prices on eBay differ from the prices on their standalone websites -- sometimes one way and sometimes the other :shock:

BTW there are many websites findable via Google that will check all the book sites for the lowest price. I suspect they make their money by adding affiliate codes to the URLs they give you in order to earn referral fees from whoever you end up buying from. Some also search used book sites and/or include shipping fees to Canada in their calculations. One such is http://www.bookfinder.com/ although I've never really used them. They're hardly perfect, e.g. they don't account for free shipping thresholds or for taxes/brokerage, but they're worth a look, especially for unusual books.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Bylo Selhi wrote:BTW there are many websites findable via Google that will check all the book sites for the lowest price. I suspect they make their money by adding affiliate codes to the URLs they give you in order to earn referral fees from whoever you end up buying from. Some also search used book sites and/or include shipping fees to Canada in their calculations. One such is http://www.bookfinder.com/ although I've never really used them. They're hardly perfect, e.g. they don't account for free shipping thresholds or for taxes/brokerage, but they're worth a look, especially for unusual books.
I've used http://www.isbn.nu for this purpose.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

Post by Clock Watcher »

I wanted to buy the Avatar blu-ray (which BTW supposedingly has the best picture quality of all blu-ray discs). $19.99 on amazon.com, $34.99 on amazon.ca, a 75% premium!
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

Post by augustabound »

Wow, thanks for the link to bookdepository.com. I looked up about 6 titles that I have on my wish list and they are significantly cheaper there than amazon.ca or chaptersindigo.ca.
An example is Security Analysis 1951 edition, $40 versus $51-54 at the other two. The other titles I looked up had similar discounts.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Clock Watcher wrote:$19.99 on amazon.com, $34.99 on amazon.ca, a 75% premium!
What makes you think this is because of the exchange rate? Perhaps .com has it on sale while .ca does not.

In any case you're going to pay too much. Go to a Zellers stores today and tomorrow and pay less after allowing for the free $10 gift card promo, i.e. $16.99 for BR. Plus there's no shipping.
$zellers.jpg
You're welcome.

Added: In any case your beef with amazon over FX may be minor compared with your imminent beef with Fox over DRM. DRM-Ravaged Avatar DVDs May Not Work On Blu-ray Players
Bought Avatar Blu-ray today along with ten gazillian other people. Only problem is that the digital rights mgmt or copy protection seems to be causing errors on a large number of players (even with updated firmware). Comments are pilling up on the web (see amazon link below). Nice job Fox, keep law abiding cash paying customers from viewing their DVDs so you can keep a few people from ripping copies to their iPods for road trips...
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Bylo Selhi wrote:
Clock Watcher wrote:$19.99 on amazon.com, $34.99 on amazon.ca, a 75% premium!
What makes you think this is because of the exchange rate? Perhaps .com has it on sale while .ca does not.

In any case you're going to pay too much. Go to a Zellers stores today and tomorrow and pay less after allowing for the free $10 gift card promo, i.e. $16.99 for BR. Plus there's no shipping.
$zellers.jpg
You're welcome.

Added: In any case your beef with amazon over FX may be minor compared with your imminent beef with Fox over DRM. DRM-Ravaged Avatar DVDs May Not Work On Blu-ray Players
Bought Avatar Blu-ray today along with ten gazillian other people. Only problem is that the digital rights mgmt or copy protection seems to be causing errors on a large number of players (even with updated firmware). Comments are pilling up on the web (see amazon link below). Nice job Fox, keep law abiding cash paying customers from viewing their DVDs so you can keep a few people from ripping copies to their iPods for road trips...
Thanks Bylo. I went to 2 Zellers this morning, but unfortunately they were sold out. Lots of DVDs but no blu-rays. I think they underestimated the popularity of this format.

Fox is obsessed with DRM. Fortunately I have the Playstation 3, which is the most popular blu-ray player, hopefully Fox tested it out on this unit.
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Re: Alternative to amazon.com?

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Nice job Fox, keep law abiding cash paying customers from viewing their DVDs so you can keep a few people from ripping copies to their iPods for road trips...
Just checked, there's at least 10 copies of the br version available as a torrent. It looks like DRM doesn't matter. I remember all the hype about a Harry Potter book, it was scanned, ocr'd and uploaded in less than four hours.

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