I thought I’d provide a free ad for a great online bookstore that I’ve been using for the last few months and have recommended to a few friends – The Book Depository. I also thought I’d add some thoughts on why I like them from a business point of view.
They are a UK based, online book store, and their business model is very simple… after all, the idea of an online bookstore is nothing new. Here are the reasons why I like them:
1. Their prices are outstanding. In fact, they are so proud of their prices that they provide a direct link for all of their books to the same book on Amazon UK, making it easy to go to Amazon if their price is better.
Lesson: Don’t rely on customer’s lack of knowledge about better options to make yourself look good… actually be the best, and actively encourage comparison shopping so that customers will see that.
2. They have great customer service. I haven’t had any reason to contact them as all 10+ books I have bought were simple transactions with no problems, but a friend made a mistake with her address and had to contact them to correct it. She said that the email based customer service was quick and very friendly.
Lesson: Being the cheapest does not mean you can forget about customer service. One bad experience and a customer will decide they can afford to pay a little extra to get better service elsewhere… and worse still, will tell their friends which will cost you several customers.
3. They have free worldwide shipping. They don’t make you search for links with well hidden explanations of their shipping prices or make you go through 90% of the checkout process to find out how much you’re up for. Even better, you won’t find that their low headline price is subsidised by ridiculously high shipping charges. They simply do not charge for shipping (to 100 countries at least).
Lesson: Don’t play games with pricing, such as subsidising low headline prices with high shipping charges or other semi-hidden costs. Once a customer has decided to buy your goods/service at your headline price, include as much as possible for that price as you can and only charge extra where absolutely necessary. Use those little extras as a way to provide a positive surprise by not charging for them rather than jumping on the opportunity to squeeze a few more dollars out of your customer and giving them a reason to regret their decision or back out of the transaction completely if they still have the chance.
4. The books I ordered were all delivered within 4-6 business days. Also, most were shipped separately even when ordered together, so they didn’t wait until they had all the books ready to ship together in order to save themselves some shipping. This compares to the 7-14 business days they quote on their site, which is also about the time that Amazon in the US take to ship to Australia.
Lesson: under-promise and over-deliver. Every book I received was a positive surprise when I went to the mailbox as I had mentally prepared myself to be waiting a couple of weeks for delivery. Positive surprises are good and will make customers talk (and blog!) about you.
If you want to see just how cheap they are, there is a great site for comparing prices on books for online purchase and delivery to Australian addresses called Booko. Here are links to a couple of price comparisons on Booko. They are for two books – one we’ve recently read in my PMBA group and another we’ll possibly read some time this year – and show you how much cheaper they are from the Book Depository. Not all price differences are this large so use this site to try a few books of your own:
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