Grumble, grumble, Amazon

[danalwyn]

Just bought some books on Amazon.

Now they're recommending books by Glenn Beck to me.

Apparently I have to be more careful about what I buy.

Comments

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

Amazon is Evil, with their recommendations and one-click shopping. It's like an open street display of liquor and drugs to entice addicts -- that looks good, and that... and that... "Hello, my name is Jackal, and I'm a bibliophile." (Hangs head.)

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, everything I want is so expensive it brings me screaming to a halt. Unfortunately, some of those used books are temptingly cheap (and without the shipping prices they look even cheaper).

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

If you're buying used check all the prices against www.abebooks.com and www.alibris.com. Amazon sellers frequently inflate their prices in my experience, and it's possible to get the same books at substantially lower prices at other online retailers, even though it means paying for shipping. I recently picked up a reference for work that was going for $89 USD on Amazon.com for $25 USD on Abebooks, for example. Weighed that way the $8 shipping was negligible. Of course none of this helps with actually curtailing book buying, but I can quit any time... *twitches*

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

So far, for the books I'm interested in, they're about the same. It's always good to have more sources, but the prices seem remarkably consistent (within a dollar or two for small things and 5% for bigger ones). Part of this is I'm looking for books that I think are only sold by certain vendors, which is probably at the root of the problem. It's probably the same people just selling through different front-ends.

Thanks for the rec though.