Buying Books Online

Buying Books Online? Here’s what you should know.

 

Buying Book, CDs and DVDs online is one the best areas to start shopping on the web. Consumers have been confidently purchasing books online for over 20 years.

Here’s what you should know before you make your first purchase.

 

Hot tips:

  • Delivery times - Check that the book is currently in stock for the fastest delivery times. Expect to wait 3 days for in-stock books shipped from Australian stores and between 5 and 14 days when buying books from the international sites
  • Free shipping – Most of the local bookstores will offer free shipping over a certain value, usually around $50. If free shipping is not included you need to consider this in the overall price
  • Range – The range available online is immense, with millions of books available compared to approx. 50,000 books in a your biggest city bookstore. You can find rare, out of print and niche books online
  • No GST - Only companies that sell their books from within Australia are required to pay GST, so if you are buying a book from a NZ, UK or US based company then you will not have to pay GST, a saving of 10%

 

Watch out for:

  • American English - When buying from Amazon in the United States, you will receive books written in American English, so best not to buy them for the kids
  • Third party suppliers – The Amazon marketplace sells books direct from Amazon and also from third party suppliers. If you buy two books on Amazon from two different suppliers, then you will need to pay two sets of shipping costs
  • Unsecure payment methods – make sure the website uses a secure online payment system

 

Anything else to know?

  • Many of the online book sellers, also stock DVDs, games and more

Money Owl’s top picks

Book Depository

The Book Depository is something of a Money Owl favourite. We constantly get rave reviews from our readers about them. We like that they do not charge postage on shipping to Australia and they will split your books up into individual parcels, so if one of the books is not in stock, you do not have to go without the others. the books are written in UK English (not American) have fast shipping times, extremely competitive prices and free shipping on all orders.

Click here to go to the Book Depository for more information or to buy books online

 

Fishpond

Fishpond is a New Zealand based company that sells the majority of their books to Australia. They guarantee that their prices are ‘Better than Amazon’ and if they are not, they will refund 10% of the purchase price into your account. Fishpond have books written in Australian English, fast shipping times, extremely competitive prices and free shipping on orders over $49.

Click here to go to Fishpond for more information or to buy books online

Other providers

Some other good online bookstores servicing Australia are listed below.

  • Booktopia - Our dealings with Booktopia have been pleasant, the staff are friendly when we have needed assistance, the range is growing and in our test, the books arrived promptly. One to keep an eye on
  • Angus and Robertson - are proudly Australian owned and are Australia's largest bookseller. You can access over 2 million books from thir online store and many items can be shipped within 24 hours. A vast improvement over the long delivery times from operators like Amazon. On 17 February 2011, Angus and Robertson, as well as Borders Books in Australia was placed into receivership. While we anticipate that all online orders will be honored, we reccommend only purchasing books that are in stock. We hope for this well established local bookseller, with over 100 years in the trade, gets back on its feet soon.
  • The Nile - The Nile is a very strong contender and the best of the local operations. The Nile has the best delivery times of all the stores we have trialled and is Australia’s largest online bookstore