Over on Brisbane Norg tonight I read a post by Durx on a UK online bookstore called The Book Depository. He sez:

…a few weeks ago I came across a British website selling books, cheap and with free “world wide delivery”. I had to give them a try. So I found my way to www.bookdepository.co.uk and ordered my first title from them, How to lose friends and Alienate People, an awesome look into the life of a guy with all the opportunities and none of the motivation. I loved it. However back to the website. The books were ordered, quickly and easily. The website is very user friendly, searching and checkout also easily navigated and quick. Postage was SO quick, well packed and of course as mentioned free.

So I checked out the site and did a quick comparison, using my friend J. David Markham’s new book “The Road to St Helena: Napoleon After Waterloo” as a test subject. I compared Book Depository with Amazon UK.

It turns out I didn’t need to, as Book Depository automatically show you on their site what you would pay on Amazon! Nice work!

Book Depository Price: £12.86
Amazon Price: £13.99 (+ normal shipping: £2.75) Total: £16.74

So you’re saving at least $8.50 AUD, probably more, as that shipping amount is for the UK and not Australia.

This “free delivery” business reminds me of all of the dotcoms in the late 90s who tried it.

So who are these crazy kids? It looks like a couple of their management team are actually ex-Amazon UK and they’ve been around since 2004, which is longer than most of the 90’s dotbombs survived.

I’ve just tested it out by ordering a copy of “In Praise of Slow” by Carl Honore, something I’ve been meaning to read for ages.