There are no words for how much this sucks. If you are outside the US/EU, reasonably priced books in english aren't easy to find. CompSci literature in English? Forget it, buddy. Book Depository had decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world. Sure, I have to wait a month and sometimes they have to reship because it got damaged in transport, but if I need a book immediately Library Genesis is right there. Book Depository built out my home library for both fiction and non-fiction, and I will miss it dearly. Salute o7
I'm really pissed off. I live in Europe outside EU and this is the most convenient way to get books in English. Often a translated book does not exist here at all, so Book Depository was a blessing in these situations.
Seems like nothing is sacred to the corporate quarterly reports. If a corporation made a little less profit this year compared to the last one (did not have losses!), it apparently justifies shutting down an online book store that ships a ton of titles at reasonable prices with free shipping to 160 countries in the world!
I'm inside the EU (Ireland) and "reasonably priced books in English aren't easy to find" unless you're buying pre-owned books and in most cases I can't find what I'm looking for specially when it comes to tech books. As an island, we're very much dependent on Amazon.co.uk for books.
If you're in Dublin then Chapters has a fantastic, on-going (closing down, perhaps?) sale on fiction. I can't find books cheaper on Amazon than there. For tech books, I get the ISBN from Amazon and then order them from Books Upstairs. It is more expensive, but not excessively so.
They don't have everything when it comes to tech or more niche material, but Kenny's (https://www.kennys.ie/) is very good and offers free (and often fast) shipping.
While Book Depository definitely had some of the lowest prices, I wouldn't say we're very much dependent on Amazon - I've found that almost everything I've looked for can be found in a handful of bookshops around Ireland (Chapters, Kennys, Charlie Byrnes, Easons, Books Upstairs, Vibes and Scribes) - it's been a good few years since I've had to rely on book depository for a book
Book Depository is still the best way to get reasonably priced books not in English too. I have managed to get a number of books in Swedish that were stupid money from other vendors or would not ship outside of Sweden (Adlibris, I am looking at you!)
> I feel like there are no words for how much this sucks for me personally. It seems to me that if you are in most countries outside the US/EU, potentially excluding strong US/EU-adjacent economies such as Canada, UK, and Switzerland (Switzerland technically not being a part of the European Union), books in english can be hard to find for some people. Book Depository had what I consider to be decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world. Sure, I have to wait around a month and sometimes they have to reship because it got damaged, possibly in transport, but if I would like to have a book at that very moment I can use Library Genesis. Books ordered from Book Depository make up a large part of my personal library, with a few exceptions course.
It's not so bad. I used to order from book depository in an attempt to use an amazon competitor. Then I found out amazon owns it. Closing it down makes it more obvious to everybody that there is none, not in a really serious way, for online books outside the USA
In Poland there is a whole ecosystem of resellers who sell various books on Allegro (which is basically polish equivalent of Ebay + Amazon).
I am not sure exactly how do they get the book info, but it is quite clear that they get the inventory off Amazon, who ships the books to the resellers first, who repack them and send them to direct customers.
Of course you can ask, "why not buy at Amazon (or Ebay) directly"? Well, for many years Amazon was simply not available in Poland, it also required a full credit card (not only a debit card), while Allegro allows many more payment systems.
I tried buying some really obscure books on Amazon - and the interface is pure garbage. When I looked for random items, those often looked like cheap knock-offs?
Generally once per year I try to look at various "best books of 2022" lists [did hacker news have one?] and then try to get the obscure books. Often it feels easier (but not cheaper) to get them through those third party sellers than search on Amazon that offers 10 options of used books, semi-used books, PDFs - I genuinely dont know how to exclude the things that I dont want.
This reminds me how EBAY tried to enter the Polish market and their launch was so damn bad and the website so damn poor, that after 2 years they licked their wounds and simply exited the market.
I wish more people know Allegro, which has its own share of problems, but is so much better (I think most problems came when venture capital came, bought it and now tries to squeeze money out of it).
In Poland you buy something on Allegro and usually in 1-2 days you get it to a parcel locker machine. Which is like a machine that stores the packages for you in a safe way. I never understood why those dont exist in USA. As I understand the delivery drivers throw the packages on your garden, where they can be stolen, damaged by rain or so on.
I think Germany also has parcel lockers + the concept was introduced to UK due to all the Polish diaspora ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_locker ), but when it comes to number of machines per capita Poland probably wins.
Thank you for sharing a glimpse of the ecosystem in Poland!
By the way, Parcel lockers do exist in the US (at least for Amazon package deliveries) https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=.... The US also has Post Office (PO) boxes that you can rent for a nominal fee a month (these are basically lockers for all types of mail including parcels).
I'm in the Baltics and Allegro is a good option where available, but I'd really like them to expand as not all items can be shipped here. I don't really understand the logic of what can and cannot as I've bought small items and large items (headlights), but quite a lot of things are not available. Last year they added English translations on the site, but searching for items in Polish returns many more results so it's not a great experience.
The market here is really ripe for a big seller as if I buy the typical "I'll just buy it from Amazon" products locally they are very overpriced - I joke that it feels like the distributor in Germany (or whatever other European hub it comes from) adds 30%, then the person who brings it here adds another 30%, and then the person who sells it here adds another 30%. For example last week I bought some insect screens from Amazon DE, they were 3 for €16. If I buy locally the cheapest price is 1 for €20.
Amazon DE ships here, but they have a €10 shipping fee so I save up until I have many items in the cart, and then it still takes a week to arrive. AliExpress is a good option now they've started charging VAT (no customs to deal with) but it takes 1 to 2 months for items to arrive from China.
An “extraordinary and unprecedented” global protest from antiquarian booksellers has forced the Amazon-owned secondhand marketplace AbeBooks to backtrack on its decision to pull out of several countries.
AbeBooks had told bookshops in countries including Hungary, the Czech Republic, South Korea and Russia that it would no longer support them from 30 November, citing migration to a new payment service provider as the reason for the withdrawal. The move prompted almost 600 booksellers in 27 countries to pull more than 3.5m titles from Abebooks’ site, putting them on “vacation” as they cited the motto of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, “Amor librorum nos unit” (love of books unites us).
I do wonder if Brexit and customs to be paid for all of the EU has anything to do with this decision.
Book Depsitory is based in the UK. I have inadvertently ordered from them, to the Netherlands, as they had a “Bookdepository NL” store, which made it seem like they are an EU entity.
However, when the book arrived, I was hit by unexpected customs charges that were half the price of the book. Looking at recent reviews, there was a surge of these complaints from all customers in the Netherlands [1]
Perhaps the timing on these customs surges are accidental, of course. But I can’t imagine that Brexit helped with their EU sales.
I think books should be exempt from import taxes into the EU -- at least, the ones I ordered from the UK a while ago had a yellow sticker saying that, and Denmark didn't charge me any fees.
However, if even 1% or 0.1% of orders gets incorrectly taxed that could lead to negative reviews and put people off.
I've never ever had to pay VAT at the customs for Book Depository orders in Finland. My most recent order came in March and I had a pre-order for June.
Books are not VAT free. On a €15 book I ended up getting charged €9 for customs:
€1 for the reduced VAT for books
€6.50 for the customs handling fee
€1.50 for VAT on the customs handling fee
So it’s the customs handling fee being added that’s contributed to the price increase. Seems like the Netherlands started to enforce it for even small value orders from the UK.
Definitely disappointed, I used them regularly for the last 6/7 years, ordered from them over 70 books and this feels like a punch in the gut. My country is not served by Amazon Prime, so basically for a single book I have to pay a delivery fee of 10 euros... While on the other hand Book Depository offered a free delivery, although you waited a month or two.
Shame, it really sucks, never should have allowed Amazon to buy them.
Goddammit, I had no idea Amazon owned Book Depository. Their service was great and it was the best way I had to buy technical books when i lived in Brazil.
I'm surprised but not surprised. Books get delivered 2-3 months later, if they ever get delivered at all. Need to contact support for replacement. End up preferring to pay the premium at local booksellers than buying from Book Depo. How do they even make money like this.
Readit News
I'm really pissed off. I live in Europe outside EU and this is the most convenient way to get books in English. Often a translated book does not exist here at all, so Book Depository was a blessing in these situations.
Seems like nothing is sacred to the corporate quarterly reports. If a corporation made a little less profit this year compared to the last one (did not have losses!), it apparently justifies shutting down an online book store that ships a ton of titles at reasonable prices with free shipping to 160 countries in the world!
I had to think on this portion of your comment for a moment. It's obvious in hindsight but the first time I've ever heard it phrased in this way.
That strange site helped me get tons of books for college.
wordery.com (based in the UK) also gives free worldwide delivery.
I had no idea this was coming. I didn't know they were owned by Amazon. This is terrible and it just goes to show that we can't have nice things.
I had been ordering books from there since 2015 :(
> I feel like there are no words for how much this sucks for me personally. It seems to me that if you are in most countries outside the US/EU, potentially excluding strong US/EU-adjacent economies such as Canada, UK, and Switzerland (Switzerland technically not being a part of the European Union), books in english can be hard to find for some people. Book Depository had what I consider to be decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world. Sure, I have to wait around a month and sometimes they have to reship because it got damaged, possibly in transport, but if I would like to have a book at that very moment I can use Library Genesis. Books ordered from Book Depository make up a large part of my personal library, with a few exceptions course.
I tried buying some really obscure books on Amazon - and the interface is pure garbage. When I looked for random items, those often looked like cheap knock-offs?
Generally once per year I try to look at various "best books of 2022" lists [did hacker news have one?] and then try to get the obscure books. Often it feels easier (but not cheaper) to get them through those third party sellers than search on Amazon that offers 10 options of used books, semi-used books, PDFs - I genuinely dont know how to exclude the things that I dont want.
This reminds me how EBAY tried to enter the Polish market and their launch was so damn bad and the website so damn poor, that after 2 years they licked their wounds and simply exited the market.
I wish more people know Allegro, which has its own share of problems, but is so much better (I think most problems came when venture capital came, bought it and now tries to squeeze money out of it).
In Poland you buy something on Allegro and usually in 1-2 days you get it to a parcel locker machine. Which is like a machine that stores the packages for you in a safe way. I never understood why those dont exist in USA. As I understand the delivery drivers throw the packages on your garden, where they can be stolen, damaged by rain or so on.
I think Germany also has parcel lockers + the concept was introduced to UK due to all the Polish diaspora ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_locker ), but when it comes to number of machines per capita Poland probably wins.
By the way, Parcel lockers do exist in the US (at least for Amazon package deliveries) https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=.... The US also has Post Office (PO) boxes that you can rent for a nominal fee a month (these are basically lockers for all types of mail including parcels).
The market here is really ripe for a big seller as if I buy the typical "I'll just buy it from Amazon" products locally they are very overpriced - I joke that it feels like the distributor in Germany (or whatever other European hub it comes from) adds 30%, then the person who brings it here adds another 30%, and then the person who sells it here adds another 30%. For example last week I bought some insect screens from Amazon DE, they were 3 for €16. If I buy locally the cheapest price is 1 for €20.
Amazon DE ships here, but they have a €10 shipping fee so I save up until I have many items in the cart, and then it still takes a week to arrive. AliExpress is a good option now they've started charging VAT (no customs to deal with) but it takes 1 to 2 months for items to arrive from China.
They do exist, and have existed since at least 2010, when I first used one.
There are many thousands of them in cities big and small. Many are run by Amazon, but not all.
I can think of six locations within a few blocks of my home.
PS: Print tech books are dead in the US anyway. They're out of date before they're ever edited, never mind hitting paper.
* Alibris (aggregator like AbeBooks)
* Better World Books (B Corp)
* ThriftBooks
* Bookshop.org (benefits local bookstores)
You can also connect directly to nearby independent booksellers on https://www.indiebound.org/
AbeBooks had told bookshops in countries including Hungary, the Czech Republic, South Korea and Russia that it would no longer support them from 30 November, citing migration to a new payment service provider as the reason for the withdrawal. The move prompted almost 600 booksellers in 27 countries to pull more than 3.5m titles from Abebooks’ site, putting them on “vacation” as they cited the motto of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, “Amor librorum nos unit” (love of books unites us).
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/08/amazon-abebook...
Book Depsitory is based in the UK. I have inadvertently ordered from them, to the Netherlands, as they had a “Bookdepository NL” store, which made it seem like they are an EU entity.
However, when the book arrived, I was hit by unexpected customs charges that were half the price of the book. Looking at recent reviews, there was a surge of these complaints from all customers in the Netherlands [1]
Perhaps the timing on these customs surges are accidental, of course. But I can’t imagine that Brexit helped with their EU sales.
[1] https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz/status/1638824647390003206
However, if even 1% or 0.1% of orders gets incorrectly taxed that could lead to negative reviews and put people off.
So it’s the customs handling fee being added that’s contributed to the price increase. Seems like the Netherlands started to enforce it for even small value orders from the UK.
As a customer this sucks. The website was a much better experience than amazon, and the free shipping everywhere was nice.
Shame, it really sucks, never should have allowed Amazon to buy them.
I’ve never once had this experience and I’ve ordered at least 100 books from the book depository, for delivery to the Middle East.
Too bad that I have a pre-order for a June release with them.