Books are expensive in Singapore. Period. I use to get my books from Borders as they never failed to diligently dole out generous coupons. I would head to Kinokuniya to browse first, and if I found a title I liked very much, I would hop across the road (to Borders) coupon in hand. Another book store I particularly like is Vivo City's Page One. In terms of titles, not so diverse, but in terms of different editions and publications of popular titles, they have quite a variety!
Being the coward that I am, I've never really bought anything online. And being the lazy bum that I also am, I never really compared prices.
And then one fine day, when I had to purchase a large quantity of books and money became tighter, I decided to check out online bookstores.
I started with Singapore's very own.
(1) Open Trolley
Not bad as a concept. But the selection of books were rather small, stuff one could find at popular bookstore or at Harris. Furthermore, they were not significantly discounted. Their advantage though is that they are based in Singapore and the books would arrive in less than a week!
(2) Amazon
Amazon's prices are competitive. But they have a very complex table of shipping charges. And I dislike tables with multiple rows, and columns, and figures. I know they are suppose to make things a lot clearer, but somehow, I don't get it. Furthermore, it seemed that when I added the shipping charges to my cart, my final price had increased exponentially!
(3) Book Depository
My favourite! And it is easy to see why. Firstly, they have a wonderful interface -- simple, clean, and very easy to use. Key in the title you are looking for, and several variants of the book pop out, displaying the cheapest edition to the most expensive. Furthermore, they are priced significantly lower than walk-in bookstores in Singapore. And best of all, shipping is free to many parts of the world!
Crazy or what!
They have two websites though, a .com and a .uk. So far, I've found the .com to be marginally cheaper than the .uk. The not-so-good thing though is that the books take a rather long time to arrive. Orders take about 2 working days to be processed and then shipping (a deed undertaken by the notorious royal mail) takes about 7-10 working days, factor in weekends, and expect the books to arrive a month later!
My first order was for a whopping 13 books! They came in drips and draps, most of them individually packed in a thickly padded white envelope. They were in pristine condition and their edges were still nice and sharp. My last 4 books arrived in one thick perforated cardboard box. These books were however not in tip top condition, their edges were fraying very slightly but they still looked and felt new.
Because I was so in love with the service and discounts, I recommended it to G. And he in turned placed a 40USD order for three books -- the latest lonely planet guide to France and two photobooks.
40USD is a steal! A lonely planet guide to France costs approximately 40SGD here, what more his pricey photobooks!
Since I had so many packages arriving, my family got curious, and all of a sudden, they had book wish lists too! While my mother wanted a book on church flowers, my father had been intrigued by a comic series he had seen in Belgium. Church Flowers was retailing at 100SGD in Kinokuniya, but only 46USD on book depository. Similarly, a copy of Blake and Mortimer (in English) costs 19SGD here (and hardly possible to find anyway), but only approximately 7USD online. Of course I could not resist picking out a book and so I choose a hard cover book on greek mythology for children. I had seen it in Kinokuniya retailing for 60SGD but it was only going for 17USD.
What sealed the deal was that we could opt to pay in Euros. Very Swell, since the USD is appreciating against the Singapore dollar while the Euro looks like it'll be nose diving for awhile.
I love the wonderful vibes of a good bargain.
No comments:
Post a Comment