It's the interface, stupid
Dec 31 '99 (Updated Jul 09 '00)
[I wrote the review that appears below as an "agreeing opinion" when Epinions.com offered that option, so that is why it reads the way it does. I'd like to amend it briefly as of this date, 9 July 2000, and just say that my two favorite places to buy books continue to be Amazon.com and abebooks.com (the Advanced Book Exchange). They seem to complement one another perfectly. Amazon.com is an excellent source for new books, and abebooks.com is a consortium of used book stores that seems to have just about every older title ever written. Between them, these Web sites have changed my life, making it far easier to find (1) specific books I want, (2) additional books by an author one of whose books I've enjoyed, and (3) new books in my favorite genres. I'm a delighted, enthusiastic fan of both.--Tom]
I'm an amazon.com fan also, and primarily because I love their user interface.
I haven't tried other bookstore Web sites (except a for that of a local store), but I have shopped at several other merchant Web sites over the past year, and there is no comparison. It's baffling to me why experienced merchants like--Patagonia, Land's End, L.L. Bean, Vermont Country Store, Wolferman's (english muffins)--and others would even open sites with such vastly inferior interfaces when the example of amazon.com is right there in front of them to copy.
In most cases, I've managed to make a purchase at the other sites, but amazon.com is just lightyears ahead. For example, Vermont Country Store does not offer its entire catalog on site, but just a very modest sampling of products. Land's End carries more products, but still not the sort of deep, extensive selection one would expect from an aspiring online merchant. And amazon.com not only has an exhaustive booklist, it has an extremely well-thought-out group of extra features:
- I bought a gift for someone once. Amazon.com still has their address on file in my customer space, and every time I buy something there, it checks to see if perhaps I want to send it to them.
- It provides recommendations, of books, music, software, and videos, based on previous products I have bought.
- With each book I examine while browsing, it provides a list of books that others who bought the book I'm examining also bought (great for picking up on related authors or subjects).
- It provides a listing of what other people in my local area are buying.
- Its shopping cart software works smoothly and dependably.
- Service is also fast and dependable. Often I have the product in hand within a couple of days.
This holiday season, I stopped online and picked up a book, four music CDs, and a software game for the kids. It took me about 15 minutes, and I got exactly what I wanted. Not only that, but amazon.com had a wide range of selections from the musical artists I had in mind (that is, I could have bought 10 different CDs of each group instead of two).
So, those are the strengths, and why I'm a regular customer. The weaknesses:
- Amazon.com offers discounts on books and other products, but has pretty hefty shipping charges that seem to make up the difference. This seems less than honest to me.
- Amazon.com's service on books that are out of print (they "search their network of used book stores") seems slow and (the one time I used it) expensive. The book I ordered cost $50 (yikes!), but I had been looking for it for years, so I coughed up. A few weeks later, I learned about the Advanced Book Exchange (http://www.abebooks.com), a consortium of used book stores with a searchable database. I was able to instantly locate three copies of the same book, one for only $14. Since then, I use amazon.com only for books in stock, and abebooks.com for the others. Caveat emptor.
One final note: nowadays, when I shop at amazon.com, I go to the Hunger Site (http://www.thehungersite.org) first, click to donate food to the hungry, and then click on the icon for Greatergood.com, a site that allows me to donate 5-10% of the price of what I purchase to the Nature Conservancy (or other selected charities) at no extra cost.
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Epinions.com ID:
tomgray
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Member: Tom Gray
Location: Norwich, Vermont
Reviews written: 160
Trusted by: 231 members
About Me:
Please donate to victims of vicious attacks on the WTC and Pentagon. Thanks in advance.
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