The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

Re:The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble by thesmallestcat on Thursday February 15, 2018 @10:57PM (#16389740)

It's destructive, and Amazon can get away with being a crap book store now. I've ordered many thousands of dollars worth of computing books from them over the years. In the past six months, and especially the past couple months, "new" books come with massive creases, scuffs, and dents. Or a bad print with hard-to-read text. A copy you'd never buy in person, or B&N would knock something off the price because of the damage. When you paid $80+ for the book, it sucks.

I haven't been returning the books for two reasons: When you get ten books in the mail and eight of them are damaged, and some of them are immediately useful, are you really going to go through Amazon's return process for all of them, photograph each one, package, ship, etc.? Second, I just know that if I do this, it will contribute to some poor schmuck losing his job at a fulfillment center, or some LAZR driver getting taken off their route, because DATA-DRIVEN.

Now I just order used books, sadly most of the vendors are on Amazon so I can't really take my business elsewhere. At least I don't feel quite as ripped off when my "Like New" book arrives in "Good" condition. Even sweeter, those vendors don't sit on my order for a week for funsies like Amazon does if you resist their PRIME offering.

Has anybody else been receiving damaged "new" books from Amazon lately?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble by throwaway9980 on Thursday February 15, 2018 @11:18PM (#16389827)

“Even sweeter, those vendors don't sit on my order for a week for funsies like Amazon does if you resist their PRIME offering.”

What’s the deal with this? I turned off prime a couple of years ago and it certainly feels like they’re intentionally slow processing orders.

For books, I only buy used and try to pick nearby sellers. Often the media mail shipment will show up in 2-3 days. Pretty great.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble by thesmallestcat on Thursday February 15, 2018 @11:27PM (#16389862)

I think it's sort of like first-class flying. There's no logistical reason for not boarding the plane rear-to-front, but you can get people to pay for the privilege of being first, so why not? Non-Prime customers are second priority, and expected fulfillment is adjusted accordingly.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble by throwaway9980 on Friday February 16, 2018 @12:09AM (#16390015)

It’s a good analogy. I must be hopelessly optimistic to think there will be a reckoning for businesses that intentionally provide a worse experience.

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Re:The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble by byproxy on Friday February 16, 2018 @01:18AM (#16390324)

The reckoning would be you no longer using their business, wouldn't it?

While I still get some books from Amazon, I've been increasingly purchasing through Abebooks. They tend to be more accurate in what they stock with regards to ISBN, which is what I go by when purchasing a book as I like to get specific editions.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble by plorkyeran on Friday February 16, 2018 @01:38AM (#16390382)

I doubt they go out of their way to delay the order, simply because that isn't the most cost-efficient thing for them to do. I would assume that they just have a priority queue of orders to process, and sometimes that queue gets backed up and takes a few days to clear out the non-Prime/expedited orders.

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Re:The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble by jrmg on Friday February 16, 2018 @12:54AM (#16390222)

Maybe the books you buy are way more esoteric than ones I do, but I’ve been very happy with Alibris for used books.

[ Parent | on HN ]