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Comment by dahdum | Hacker News Reader

Cool concept, but the books I compared were 20-50% higher than Amazon, and they charge another $3.50 to ship in 7-10 days.

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Haven't read the article but like what you say, I tried to get a book from waterstones, a UK bookshop on my high street. I don't mind paying 20% or 25% extra as I don't like amazon and I do want to support local bookshops but when they cost that much more and they don't have it in stock and can't tell me when they will get it in, I say screw you and go with amazon.

Actually, occasionally Waterstones is actually cheaper than Amazon :)

In order to avoid amazon I get my books from abebooks. Sadly today I just found out Abebooks is owned by Amazon.

Alibris is basically the same thing and not owned by Amazon.

I recently bought a book from waterstones online but only because amazon would have taken at least 3 weeks to get it to me. It was the same price as amazon but I did have to pay a couple of pounds for postage. Though another reason to not buy amazon is to avoid fakes. I have bought a book from amazon that was clearly fake.

To me seems as though amazon pricing has gone up and I am happy to pay a little more and wait if it helps to establish a more competitive market and to reduce counterfeits, fraudulent selling, and over-fit ML recommendations that make it difficult to browse into new areas

Amazon typically sells books below MSRP, whereas it seems that Bookshop sells at MSRP (ie. the same price that you'd buy the book in a brick and mortar book store).

Is cost the only variable to optimize for? The commodity is the same in both places (barring some reports of counterfeits in Amazon's stock), but is the labor?

I'd argue that buying from Amazon has some externalities that aren't captured in the price (particularly in their treatment of labor). I pay more for some times of food that avoids things I consider negative externalities, I'd do the same for books and other commodities. That's just an opinion, though, feel free to disagree.

The cost is a factor, but the 7-10 day delay is far worse for me and it’s ~$10 shipping to get 2-3 day delivery.

Also, do we know for sure the Ingram warehouse employees are better treated than Amazon?

To be honest, Amazon shipping works because it's a monopoly. They don't care how much you buy, it's almost the same for the company, they have to hire the same amount of staff, and same paid hours, at least in urban area. But for any independent store, they have to negotiate a rate with a shipper, which would charge a flat base rate, and overweight if there are any. So it can be difficult for them to offer quality and fast shipping in terms of cost. In a way, they are less efficient than Amazon.

Bookshop fulfillment is handled by Ingram Content Group, a massive book distribution and logistics company, and itself the biggest distributor to independent bookstores.

Disclosure: I work for a child company of Ingram

The reasons makes no difference to an end consumer. They just care about the services provided.

I don't disagree in theory, but I don't understand how Bookshop protects indies from Amazon in a way that selling their books directly doesn't, especially if they don't offer an advantage on price or convenience.

On the other hand I might actually be able to buy technical books on here which gives me a way to stop buying anything from Amazon.

And they didn't list a couple of the books I have read recently.

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