The Book Depository Review
Ranked #360 in Books, Poetry & Writing, #16,448 overall
Personal Opinion About The Book Depository
I have decided to write a BookDepository review since I've been buying books from them for a while, and I'm quite happy with their service and pricing. First of all, I'll tell you a little about myself and how I've come to choose BD over the other stores.
I live in Lithuania, which is a small country in the European Union. I am a huge fan of fantasy books - I read them in Lithuanian, Russian and English (original language whenever possible). Acquiring fantasy & sci-fi works in English is a bit of a problem over here - not many bookstores sell them in the first place, and even then they only offer a small selection. Thankfully, there's the internet!
I had been getting my reads from Amazon before. They offer a huge selection and reasonable prices, but their shipping costs were huge. I'm sure they're smaller in the UK or US, but the delivery to Lithuania had cost me as much as the books themselves! (Amazon charges both per-package and per-item, basically doubling the cost). Besides, the package used to take more than two weeks to reach me.
This is where I started looking for an alternative, and The Book Depository caught my eye due to their advertised "free worldwide delivery". After buying and receiving my first order from them, I said goodbye to Amazon and their overpriced international shipping!
I live in Lithuania, which is a small country in the European Union. I am a huge fan of fantasy books - I read them in Lithuanian, Russian and English (original language whenever possible). Acquiring fantasy & sci-fi works in English is a bit of a problem over here - not many bookstores sell them in the first place, and even then they only offer a small selection. Thankfully, there's the internet!
I had been getting my reads from Amazon before. They offer a huge selection and reasonable prices, but their shipping costs were huge. I'm sure they're smaller in the UK or US, but the delivery to Lithuania had cost me as much as the books themselves! (Amazon charges both per-package and per-item, basically doubling the cost). Besides, the package used to take more than two weeks to reach me.
This is where I started looking for an alternative, and The Book Depository caught my eye due to their advertised "free worldwide delivery". After buying and receiving my first order from them, I said goodbye to Amazon and their overpriced international shipping!
The Book Depository vs Amazon
Here's why I prefer The Book Depository over Amazon:
Of course, this is just my personal opinion - maybe you like Amazon just fine. However, switching to BD allowed me to save a lot of money and time, and that's why it's my preferred online book shop now.
- Free worldwide shipping: only pay for your book, no matter which country you live in. Forget overpriced delivery charges! (See the huge list of supported countries).
- Competitive prices: Amazon and BookDepository usually offer similar prices. That means buying from BD is cheaper, since Amazon will also charge additional money for shipping. Only in very rare cases where Amazon book price + shipping costs are less than BookDepository book price, I'd order from Amazon.
- Fast delivery: interestingly enough, TheBookDepository packages usually reach me in a few days, while Amazon parcels used to take 2 weeks - despite BD offering free shipping and Amazon charging unreasonable amounts for it! Go figure.
- PayPal support: this is a big one! Amazon only lets me pay with my credit card, while BD allows me to use PayPal, which is much more convenient and secure.
Of course, this is just my personal opinion - maybe you like Amazon just fine. However, switching to BD allowed me to save a lot of money and time, and that's why it's my preferred online book shop now.
The Book Depository Review: Free Shipping
First of all, the "worldwide" part includes a respectable list of about 100 countries. So yes, there's still a small chance that BD won't be able to deliver books to your location (make sure to check the list of countries linked above before you start ordering).
Second, TheBookDepository will ship every book you purchase in a separate package. That means if you order, say, 3 books, you will receive 3 packages as well. They might not even arrive at the same time! I'm a bit puzzled as to why they do it this way, but I guess it's cheaper and is one of the things that allows them to offer books with free shipping.
Finally, they use Royal Mail inside the UK, and Royal Mail Priority Airmail for international shipments. Your book will be contained in a regular bubble envelope. You can find more information regarding delivery times, etc. on BD's help page.
BookDepository Review: Payment Options
BookDepository accepts all major credit cards and PayPal (yay!) as payment options. You can find out more on the BookDepository payment help page.
Go shopping at The Book Depository right now, or share your opinion in the poll and comments below.
The Book Depository Poll
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July 2011: Amazon Buys The Book Depository
It has come to my attention that the online retail giant Amazon has acquired Gloucester-based BookDepository on July 4th this year. TBD was Amazon's largest rival in the UK - however, three quarters of its sales were generated by foreign customers (no doubt thanks to the free shipping offer). You can read more about this acquisition on Guardian.co.uk. I can only hope that Amazon does not introduce shipping charges or make other unnecessary changes to this great online bookstore.
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Bruno Ferreira
Jan 26, 2012 @ 7:28 am | delete
- Here I am Again, I already got all the books, but its to expensive to send them back to the book depository, so I got F*******ed.I cant get my money back, and I cant get the normal size books.
Tanks Book Depository!! :-((((((
HIDDING THE INFORMATION OF THE BOOK SIZE IS NOT THE WAY TO TREAT CUSTMERS!!!
WARNING: IF YOU WANT TO BUY FROM THE BOOK DEPOSITORY, ALLWAYS CHECK THE FULL BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA, TO SEE THE SIZE OF THE BOOK. OR YOU WILL GET F***** LIKE ME!!!!
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Bruno Ferreira
Jan 21, 2012 @ 12:32 pm | delete
- @ Chris Thorn - You are right, I had the same problem! after contact them, one of their employees told me that they have different book formats and I had to see it in this place:
--See: Full bibliographic data -- inside that is this:
Physical propertiesFormat: Hardback
Number of pages: 528
Width: 160 mm
Height: 229 mm
Thickness: 46 mm
Weight: 680 g
They should have this information on the description of the book, like this:
Clockwork Prince (Infernal Devices (Cloth)) (Hardback) --If is a MASS MARKET POCKET OR A POCKET BOOK, this information should be right THERE!! NOT HIDDEN IN THE Full bibliographic data!
this book that I put there as the right size ITS A NORMAL BOOK.
ALLMOST ALL THE BOOKS THAT THEY HAVE FROM 3 EUROS UP TO 10 ARE MASS MARKET POCKET BOOK = SMALL BOOK SIZE!!!! THATS WHY THE PRICES ARE SO LOW!!!
ONE OF MY BOOKS FROM THE FIRST ORDER IS STILL "MIA" THEY WHERE SHIPPED IN THE SAME DAY, SO I DONT KNOW WHATS THE PROBLEM IT THIS ONE!
WAITING FOR ALL THE BOOKS TO SHIP THEM BACK!! AND BUY THE NORMAL SIZE BOOKS.
SEE THE EMAIL THAT I SEND TO THEM AND THE REPLY:
Tanks mr James I really hope that you can put forward the idea to put standardised sizes of the books in the description, and I hope that they accept!!!
Your store never had this problem before??
I will waint for the rest of the books and the return them to your store to be refunded and be able to buy the book in the normal size.
Is it normal for books that were shipped in the same day to arrive in diferent dates?
do you know the size for normal books(the standart edition)? I dont want to make the same mistake twice!
tanks for all your help.
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Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:43:50 +0000
From: contactus@bookdepository.co.uk
To: sesimbraathome@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Contact us form post: I have received the wrong book
Dear Bruno,
Unfortunately different website have different formats of how they put up their information, Amazon for an example you will need to check the biography in order to see what language the title is in. I will put forward the idea to see if we can put standardised sizes of the books in the description, however as I said below this is difficult as different titles come in different sizes, weight and formats.
On further inspection I can confirm this is not a "Pocket" sized title it is what is called Mass Market Paper Back. Please note that no content has been omitted (left out) from the title, however Mass market paperbacks tend to have cheaper paper, no (or very few) illustrations, smaller print, and a smaller page dimension.
Unfortunately we are unable to offer exchanges, however you are welcome to return the title to us at:
Returns Department
The Book Depository Ltd.
Goodridge Business Park,
Quedgeley,
Gloucester
GL2 5EB
Please include the packing slip as this provides all the information needed to process your refund and also a brief note explaining the reasons for your return. I am afraid that we are unable to reimburse customers for expenses incurred returning titles to us.
I hope the above information helps you.
Kind Regards,
James Hoddy
Customer Advisor
On 18/01/2012 20:15, Night Night wrote:
the ISBN is: 978-0-451-21084-5
I went to see what you where you talking about, when you said "bibliographic data", and I never iven seen that because i tought all the books where in the normal size, like we have here in Portugal, when its a different book size they say it just next to the book! Like -- paperback, pocket paperback or hardback! and I never saw that in the books that I order!
I never expected that to be "hidden" in the bibliographic data, I think it should be in the title like this: The Gunslinger (Dark Tower (Paperback)) (Paperback) IF the book is a pocket book would be simple to do this: The Gunslinger (Dark Tower (Paperback)) (POCKET Paperback), so that would be missleading?
You have in the site the says: Filter your search: price range ---Availability-----Format --- in the FORMAT there's nothing saying POCKET BOOK!
what is the normal book size??
Now I saw that all the books are in the same size, so now what can I do?? throw them away? because I cant read half the book, this pocket books have the story is cut in half or more.
tank you.
I HOPE THIS WILL HELP OTHER PEOPLE, IF YOU WANT TO BUY FROM THEM ALLWAYS CHECK THE : Full bibliographic data! TO SEE THE SIZE OF THE BOOK! OR YOU WILL GET F****
WILL COME BACK AND TELL WHATS GOING ON WITH MY ORDER.
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Chris Thorn
Jan 19, 2012 @ 7:40 pm | delete
- Terrible terrible service. My books came... I ordered two Raymond Feist hardbacks. What I got was two books 11cm tall. 11cm! They were books for gnomes, obviously. Sending them back. Book Depository is sh*t as sh*t can be in my opinion.
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Bruno Ferreira
Jan 18, 2012 @ 1:03 pm | delete
- Like I said here I am! but with BAD news!!!!, two of the 6 books that i order arrived today, one of them was the complete wrong book, its a POCKET SIZE BOOK, and I never ordered a pocket size book!!! When someone orders a book they expect to be in the normal size, NOT A LITTLE BOOK WITH A REDUCED STORY! Pocket size books are for people that don’t want to read!!!!! and STEPHEN KING DOES NOT WRITE POCKET SIZE BOOKS, as we all know, the books are always very big!
Now im thinking that the reason that the prices are low is because they are not the real versions of the books, but a SMALL POCKET VERSION! that no one in their right mind wants to read it!!!
People go there to by real books, and they sell them SMALL PIECES OF CRAP! Shouldn’t they say that is a POCKET SIZE BOOK, SO PEOPLE CAN CHOOSE THE RIGHT BOOK FOR THEM??????!!!!!
IM REALLY DESAPPOINTED WITH THIS STORE!!!
NOW I HAVE CONTECTED THEM, and ask what they are going to do about this! Are they going to help and give me the right books or should I throw this pieces of crap in to the garbage and buy the real books from a real store!
I have 76 books in my wishlist, can any of you imagine if I hand buy a lot more books, like I wanted??!!! I just thought that I should wait to see if the books would come in the right condition and then by more.
NOW I DON’T THINK THAT I AM GOING TO BUY ANYMORE BOOKS FROM THEM.
Waiting to see if they will do anything about this!
f****** this store!
Im so disappointed……………………………………..!!!
Will come back to say something about this, and to see what they do!
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Masayu
Jan 18, 2012 @ 7:20 pm | delete
- I hope tbd will give you the right book. :(
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Masayu
Jan 16, 2012 @ 11:14 pm | delete
- I'm from Indonesia, and shipping is killing for me. So i'm glad to found tbd. I bought 2 book yesterday and waiting. I ask my friends who already try bought from tbd. She said it took 5 week to arrive in Indonesia safely. I don't mind if the shipping took a long time. As long as is arrive anyway :D
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Bruno Ferreira
Jan 12, 2012 @ 8:05 am | delete
- I've order from the Book Depository 6 books on January 07 2012, a couple of days later I didnt see any changes in the order, so I contact them and ask why was the order still (Processing) and not shipped. They contact me in the same day, and told me that one of the books as unavailable and ask me if I wanted to be refunded for this book, and they did refund me to my Paypal account. See their email:
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:04:09 +0000
From: orderquery@bookdepository.co.uk
To: sesimbraathome@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Contact us form post: I have not received my order
Dear Bruno,
I am terribly sorry for the delay in dispatching your items; we have had some difficulty in obtaining stock from our supplier in the usual time period. We hope to have this shipped to you as soon as possible.
If you do not wish to continue with your order, please advise and we may be able to cancel this providing it still hasn’t been dispatched.
I'm afraid that 'The Stand' is currently unavailable, we are able to cancel and refund you for this, if you wish?
Kind Regards,
Annabel Mander
Customer Advisor
On 10/01/2012 12:36, help@bookdepository.com wrote:
www.bookdepository.com | Find a book
Free shipping worldwide
Your account
Online help
Contact us
Terms and conditions
Coming soon | Bestsellers | Reviews | Offers
Contact from a website
Order number:
bruno ferreira has contacted us regarding I have not received my order with the following message:
I know that for europe is 7 to 10 days, but i dont see any changes in my Order No. BDA-005-0099821941, it says processing, did you get the money that I send by paypal? In other sites I see things like dispatched, and I dont see it yet in your site, so I dont know whats going on! help!
tanks.
AS YOU CAN SEE BY THE EMAIL, I DINT HAVE ANY PROBLEM YET.
FOR ALL PEOPLE, DONT WAIT A LONG TIME TO CONTACT THEM IF YOUR BOOK DIDNT ARRIVE YET, GO TO THEIR SITE AND SEE IF THEY CHANGE YOUR ORDER FROM PROCESSING TO SHIPPED, IF NOT CONTACT THEM AND ASK WHY! DONT WAIT MORE THAN 2 DAYS AFTER YOUR PAYMENT.
Now im waiting for my books to arrive (shipped on 11 january) they say that for europe is 7 to 10 working days, and I live in Portugal, so I hope to get my books on the 24 th (10 working days). when they arrive I will come back and comment on the condition of the books and the time it took to arrive.
See you soon, I hope! :-)
See you soon.
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Blaza
Jan 11, 2012 @ 9:12 am | delete
- I've ordered a calendar from Book Depository on December 07, 2011. And I'm still waiting for it to come...first it was out of stock (they didn't bother to inform me on that), now I should contact my local sorting office to see if they're holding it (I bet they are)...Even if it was a book, that would be unacceptable, but who needs a calendar (and btw a gift) in February? BD provides such a lousy service, I will never ever order anything from them again!
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Trashy Romance Reader
Nov 2, 2011 @ 8:46 pm | delete
- I've ordered lots of books from the Book Depository since I came across them online back in 2009.I loved their free shipping and their books usually come in around 2 weeks to my location (Australia). The one time something was really really late,I contacted them and received an offer of a replacement.When the item finally showed up there was a sticker on it saying it was opened by customs (so it wasn't the BD's fault).
I really happy with their pricing,its a lot lower than the price of books at my local book store (about half or sometimes a third of the price).It's even cheaper for pre orders (compare Amazon pre order price and BD pre order price).In my experience,pre orders usually arrive within a week of their release date and sometimes earlier since BD receives them in advance from the publishers.
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Inda
Oct 25, 2011 @ 10:29 pm | delete
- I have my fair share with this company as well..I really like their free shipping worldwide service, which save my money on shipping a lot but unfortunately some of the books that I bought came in quite poor condition, as as new as they described..In a nutshell, it is 50-50 gamble when you purchase books from them..you may have to wait quite a while for your books to arrive, or it may be lost during transit or if you do get it, the quality may varies..
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Tomas Talpa
Oct 21, 2011 @ 10:41 pm | delete
- I am quite surprised to see so many negative comments mentioning late shipping/lost deliveries/different books delivered.
Over the course of last two years I have ordered total of 44 books from Book Depository, and each and every one has been delivered within week (Czech Republic), without any damage. Yes, their review system is pretty void space, so I am checking the reviews on Amazon, though.
Given the shipping cost of Amazon, I do prefer BD anytime when I can choose.
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No one's business but my own
Oct 20, 2011 @ 3:50 pm | delete
- I have twice ordered books that came from the Book Depository. Both times were disasters. The first time, the book took well over a month to arrive; the second time, the book I received bore no resemblance to the one I ordered. I will never order from this organization again.
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Dr Pallab Ray
Oct 12, 2011 @ 12:31 pm | delete
- Book Depository is a pure fraud organization. I ordered "Nikon D5100 for Dummies" (order no BDG-812-4828117310) and waited for nearly one month. They have a few automated replies like "should have reached by this time", "please inquire in the post office", "please wait for two more weeks" and keep on cycling the same. I have four replies mentioning "I confirm that the book was dispatched on 19th Sep". Today, after wasting a full month of waiting, I get an intimation of refund apologizing that the book could not be sent because it was out of stock. The worst fraudulent organization I ever came across in my hundreds of on line shopping experience. It is run by a bunch of pure liars who have no respect for customers time and money.
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Irina
Aug 8, 2011 @ 10:56 am | delete
- I live in Russia, but originaly I'm from Australia. Although I've lived in Russia (Moscow) for about 6 years now and can speak and read perfectly in russian (I'm half russian), I still prefer to read my books in english. I don't know, I guess I just enjoy it more.
Not long ago my dad told me about book depository! I was very excited, since getting english books in Russia is real tricky and you don't get much choice. But then when I was looking at the countries they deliver to it seemed Russia wasn't on the list. They deliver to Ukraine, but not Russia..
Whenever I'm overseas I always order books from BD, but its always so frustrating to take them all back to Russia in a suitcase.
Does anybody know the reason Russia isn't somewhere BD delivers to?
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Priska
Aug 4, 2011 @ 3:24 am | delete
- Just bought 5 books from BookDepository, are they really that bad? Cause I spent hundred dollars and will definitely freaked out if the books didn't arrived.
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Chadrew
Aug 25, 2011 @ 2:55 pm | delete
- From what people are saying, it seems that delivery in Europe is much more reliable than to US or other regions (no surprise, seeing how BD is based in the UK). The main problem is that they send their books via regular, unregistered mail, so if they get lost, there's nothing you can do as there are no tracking numbers assigned to the orders.
I've bought a total of 28 books from them. 26 arrived without problems. 1 didn't arrive, but I didn't contact BD since I thought the crappy postal service of my country were at fault (they probably were, lots of packages disappear here when it's really busy during Christmas). And in the final case, a piece of cardboard arrived with an apology from Royal Mail about damaged item (lol?) so I contacted BookDepository, and they sent me a replacement (which I got without problems).
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Rhonda
Jun 21, 2011 @ 2:23 pm | delete
- I ordered a book from Book Depository almost a month ago. At the same time I also order other items from Amazon.com. Every item that I order from Amazon.com showed up at my shipping address in as little as a week, but I am still waiting on the book that I ordered from Book Depository. The standard shipping says 14 business days M-F, but the day it said it was shipped was a Saturday. The shipped date was also questionable, 09 June 11. This to me is June 11, 2009. I ordered this book June 6, 2011.
I am not impressed with this company.
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dhollist
Jun 21, 2011 @ 2:41 pm | delete
- Rhonda, if it's only been 15 days you haven't seen the worst of it yet. My order took 6 weeks and an e-mail to the Managing Director of TheBookDepository. I wish you luck, but regret recommending this company to friends after my first order, which went like clockwork. Something has changed, and not for the better.
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David
Jun 10, 2011 @ 10:20 am | delete
- In the past, I've had good service. Today I placed an order for an ebook because the web site it was in pdf format. The download was a small acsm file, which requires Adobe's Digital Editions. This means I can't read the book on an Android device. I thought it best to point this out as there are no refunds after the ebook (or acsm file) is downloaded. The person on the chat service didn't want to acknowledge that the site is misleading. Just thought it was worth pointing out.
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D
Jun 3, 2011 @ 6:42 pm | delete
- I ordered a book. They sent the wrong book. I have contacted them 3 separate times about it. On the third attempt, I gave them all the appropriate ISBN information and their reply still said "please tell me the ISBN of the book so we can sort out this problem" - the exact same response I got the first two times.
Poorest customer service I have EVER experienced, and I shop online a lot.
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Tim
May 11, 2011 @ 4:53 am | delete
- The Book Depository are fantastic! Free postage (which is usually pretty quick), and customer service have always been very helpful and accomodating when a book doesn't arrive.
I'm a happy chappy and use them whenever possible!
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Moran
Mar 26, 2011 @ 5:31 am | delete
- I found out about The Book Depository around 2 years ago and I bought so many books from them and I'm super happy with the prices, the service and the fact that the books arrive very fast.
I live in Israel and shipping from other online book stores is just too expensive so the fact they offer free shipping and great book prices is great for me- if I pre order a book most of the time the price is even lower than on Amazon!
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Stelios
Mar 1, 2011 @ 3:32 am | delete
- I also ordered some books from BookDepository for the first time on October 2010.
At early November, and while my books never arrived, they said that a full refund of 137.5 euros will appear in my account shortly.
Shortly became FOREVER, so at January 10 of 2011 after I managed to find aphone number of them at last(!!!),some representative called Lu reassured me that they would send a cheque shortly (AGAIN!).
Then on February 17 after I wrote them that if I don't get my cheque until the 25th, everyone on the web would hear my story, they replied that they would immediately contact their accounting department in order to send the cheque ....guess again....SHORTLY!
I really hope they will clear my issue eventually and save me from 137.5 euros of expenditure, which -believe me- in Greece especially is a large amount of money!
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Adam
May 11, 2011 @ 10:26 am | delete
- I cancelled an order with @bookdepository 5 months ago, and I still haven't received my refund. Ridiculous. Never shopping with them again.
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Kimberly Bullock
May 28, 2011 @ 4:28 pm | delete
- These people are a rip off. I ordered a book 11 days ago and have yet to tech my book. I am going to write the BBB. Asap.
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dhollist
Feb 10, 2011 @ 6:44 am | delete
- My partner and I ordered 2 books from The Book Depository the first week of December and did not receive them in time for the start of his next academic semester in the second week of January. Responses from BD customer service were excruciatingly slow, and they couldn't provide any information except a link to a Royal Mail website that explains that shipping could take longer during the holidays. After 5 weeks of waiting, we finally demanded a refund and paid the full price for the books at the University bookstore.
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Lola
Feb 9, 2011 @ 7:22 pm | delete
- Didn't receive the book after two months. They can't provide a tracking # or even the method of shipment. Turns out they sent it without my street address and fail to see how that is a problem. Also fail to see how that is their fault. They refuse to re-send the book or to give a refund. Horrible customer service. I've seen other comments/reviews with the exact same scenario. They are obviously choosing to rip off a percentage of their customers to appear they are offering good prices to everyone else.
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Tim
May 11, 2011 @ 4:55 am | delete
- Did you check in case you didn't register the address correctly? Seems fair enough that the company shouldn't have to cover for your mistake in my opinion.
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Tricia
Jan 17, 2011 @ 7:29 am | delete
- It should be 'negative' not positive reviews for my last post. BD people try to 'neutralize' negative reviews by pretending to be a happy customer, or just to push down negative reviews.
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Tricia
Jan 17, 2011 @ 7:28 am | delete
- Hi, I just want to comment that BD delivery sucks. It's slow and books tend to come damaged since they only used bubble wrap.
It's definitely cheap, but customer service and book quality left much to be desired. And one thing: I noticed that some people are employed by BD to post glowing reviews about the company.
If you Googled reviews about BD (like I did) and found a positive blog post, you can be sure to find someone defending BD eventough it is just a small blog.
Coincidence? Or just simple dedicated BD staff doing a good job. Your guess!
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Avid Reader
Dec 24, 2010 @ 3:12 pm | delete
- If you live in the U.S. they are a horrible option. I ordered on December 8. The book was finally shipped on December 13 and it is December 24 and it still has not arrived. Stick with Amazon, for the extra pennies the book would have cost, I would have had it at least 10 days ago.
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Susana
Dec 22, 2010 @ 6:49 pm | delete
- I tried the Book Depository this year. Their advertising was fraudulent. The book I ordered was said to be in the US in both Delaware and California and shipping was by UPS. When I got to checkout, all of a sudden the shipping was US mail. It was December 6, so I figured,ok, I'll have it by Xmas if it is being mailed from Delaware. Here I am on December 22, and not a sign of it. Come to find out it was shipped from the UK! So it is probably sitting at Heathrow along with all the people who can't get out. I had emailed them and asked where it was being shipped from and they were evasive until I persisted, and finally told me. If they had been honest from the beginning, I could have ordered from an outlet in the US, and had the present for Xmas. I will never buy from them again. Honest book outlets tell you up from where it is being shipped from, especially at Xmas. I cannot believe they are an Amazon bookseller!
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Flynn_the_Cat
Nov 27, 2010 @ 6:08 pm | delete
- I think they're fine - the only points I'd add are that there isn't much in the way of a review on the site, so you'd still want to either know what you're after or doublecheck on Amazon (basically, make sure you have the right ISBN and look for that!) and that Amazon does let you pay via Paypal - you just have to have a registered credit card, and then pick Paypal at the end.
But yes, Amazon shipping. Uuuurgh.
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Catherine
Nov 11, 2010 @ 8:14 am | delete
- I like shopping with the Book depository and would recommend them to family and friends.
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Sharmaine
Oct 29, 2010 @ 3:06 am | delete
- I love Book Depository, it's very reliable and so cheap! It's even cheaper than buying the books here in Australia. I've only had minor issues with them, e.g. sometimes the books will come a couple of days later than expected, the cover of one hardback I ordered was slightly creased from delivery and one book had a different (but better!) cover than the one I ordered.
However, I've bought 14 books from them so far and I really appreciate their straightforward site, friendly service and their products (BOOKS!). :) It's a big thumbs up for me.
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Matthew
Oct 18, 2010 @ 11:02 am | delete
- The issue with "The Book Depository" has been resolved.
I encourage folks to shop them, and the moderator may remove my remarks below.
Thanks,
Matthew
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Damon
Nov 18, 2010 @ 3:34 am | delete
- This stinks of a cover up! As if the same Matthew as below posted this! Sounds like Book Depository are trying to cover their tracks...
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Matthew
Oct 14, 2010 @ 8:54 am | delete
- I purchased an e-book from them. I talked later with the author and publishing company and discovered that "The Book Depository" sold me an illegal, pirated copy of the authors work. I filed a dispute with Paypal, but they only seem interested in getting their cut of the money. I offered to send proof, but neither company was interested. Find a legal and legit company to give your money too!
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Norris
Oct 14, 2010 @ 3:40 pm | delete
- Matthew, how was the e-book illegal? PayPal only associate with legitimate companies, and in my experience, will only side with the seller if the customer is clearly in the wrong? There has to be pretty damning evidence for them not to give the customer the benefit of the doubt in all of the cases I've seen. Sure you didn't just goof up?
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Matthew
Oct 14, 2010 @ 3:56 pm | delete
- Paypal will 'associate' with anyone who will open up an account. Your experience with Paypal must be limited if you think they only side with the seller if the customer is wrong. Once Paypal knew that it was an electronic download, they will not go any further. They did not want me to send them the information/links regarding what I had learned. Paypal may be more helpful if you order a 'physical' item, but if its a digital item, your out of luck. Think about it a second... who does Paypal get their money from? They make their money from the seller, not the customer. I was told by Paypal that the the case was 'closed' they would be monitoring the company for fraud.... which i take as meaning they won't be doing anything.
On a positive note, the author of the e-book (who has never received a penny from this company for the digital sales of her books) sent me a usable .pdf copy of the book. I'm now just concerned that she be paid for her hard work writing her books and not be taken advantage of by a company selling her books and not paying her.
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Lauren
Sep 21, 2010 @ 5:32 pm | delete
- I had a similar issue to Neville. Purchased several copies of an Enid Blyton children's book set for my daughters and received something quite different from those advertised. Main character's names had changed and the text had been sanitised for 'modern' children (apparently). Completely different to what was advertised, and both frustrating & disappointing since I'd been hunting the original text versions down particularly. Book Depository did not want to know and don't seem too concerned about updating their descriptions either. So never again for me too - the savings I could make will never add up to the money I spent on six books I was sent that were quite different to what Book Depository advertised. And if you can't trust their book descriptions, how on earth can you know if what you are paying for is what you are going to get?
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Neville
Sep 14, 2010 @ 7:55 pm | delete
- Ordered an ebook version of WordPress for Dummies 3rd ed but Book Depository site switched it to the 2nd ed ordering page without any obvious indication that I was ordering the second edition. They would supply the 3rd ed, or refund nor even credit the payment to the 3rd once the 2nd ed was downloaded. Very poor service and a gross misrepresentation on their part. Will never use them again - so they have lost any future value from me - all for the sake of them sticking to their guns for 10 quid.
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WordCustard
Aug 5, 2010 @ 3:35 pm | delete
- Great to see this glowing review of The Book Depository. I used to use them a lot and never had cause for complaint, and would definitely use them again. This lens is going to be helpful for those yet to try them.
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