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Comment by cromulent | Hacker News Reader

I know a lot of people like the Book Depository due to their "free" shipping. They actually adjust their price using geo IP data. VPN's can save you a lot.

Someone made a website to show you the pricing discrepancies per location:

http://www.bookdepository.cheap/Lisp-Small-Pieces-Christian-...

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Shouldn't the shipping costs be based on where you're shipping to rather than where you're browsing from? Or am I misunderstanding?

You only give them the destination when you check out. They want to factor shipping into the price transparently from the start. GeoIP data is available from the very moment you load the webpage, your shipping address is not.

That seems odd because if I happen to be browsing from abroad I might be put off by the shipping costs, which would turn out not to even be accurate for the destination I want.

> They want to factor shipping into the price transparently from the start

I guess if they made it obvious that that's what they were doing (stating their assumption about your destination) it would be fine.

Aren't they owned by Amazon now ? I know it's often cheaper to buy from them as a marketplace seller on Amazon, with postage, than direct from their site (and still cheaper than Amazon).

> I know it's often cheaper to buy from them as a marketplace seller on Amazon, with postage, than direct from their site.

I noticed that several times and never understood it.

As a seller, you want to make any sale that's profitable above your minimum margin, but want to charge the most you can get away with. When you have competition, you lower your price to compete. When you're selling on your own site you can charge more and still have sales.

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