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Comment by kevingadd | Hacker News Reader

It's genuinely astonishing how bad Amazon is at shipping books now. It used to be their Thing, and now basically any book you buy from them arrives damaged. You can complain and get them to send a replacement and the replacement is damaged too.

In my experience Amazon Japan still knows how to pack books correctly, but I haven't ordered from them since the start of COVID... they properly secure books to a bit of backing cardboard (with shrink-wrap and/or rubber bands, usually) and then mount the backing cardboard inside of the packing box so that the books don't slide around and get damaged. I'm sure it costs like an extra 50 cents per package to do this, but presumably their customers demand quality in other countries where Amazon doesn't have a de-facto monopoly.

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Let me emphasize something here: Amazon Japan ships globally. Not just books -- bags too. And that's big because the Japanese bag selection is truly something else. Alas, many are very expensive. However, since I didn't travel for more than a year now (guess why) I have shuffled the travel budget over to the bag budget and bought a bag from Amazon Japan. Here's the most important part, watch just thirty seconds: https://youtu.be/g6uSpuN2uT8?t=346 ideal size for me, incredible flexibility. I combine it with https://youtu.be/oaRyVuLuWOw?t=160 because I like flexibility :)

Previously I was buying electronics and I needed to use proxies which are added cost and hassle.

> the Japanese bag selection is truly something else.

Got any tips?

I left a link to a Japanese video but https://www.reddit.com/r/ManyBaggers/comments/aj6q91/travel_... https://www.reddit.com/r/ManyBaggers/comments/bl1plj/japanes... https://www.amazon.co.jp/s?k=xpac

I agree. I don’t books on Amazon anymore here in Germany unless I cannot get the book anywhere else.

As for Amazon Japan, their packaging is most often top-notch although that’s more related to Japanese mentality than to Amazon‘s policy.

Provided the items are fulfilled locally (as in Japan) the packaging and delivery tends to be pretty much flawless. I'm honestly surprised by the number of English books they stock locally.

Lots of books on Amazon are now printed on demand. In theory a smart and possibly environmentally friendly practice.

But you end up with smudgy pages from a bad printer, pages missing, and a book binding not lasting more than a day.

This sounds more like you are getting counterfeit books, not print-on-demand.

It’s a real thing [1] - although you might think they were counterfeits on arrival if you weren’t aware of this service

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Print-on-Demand-Guide/b?ie=U...

Yes, it sounds like it. Which says something about the quality of Amazon's product, heh.

I find it especially galling when for a document title search, I’ll see public domain reports (NASA NTRS PDFs for instance) ranking higher in Google results for buying a print on demand copy via Amazon at significantly inflated prices, or honestly just what is plain disgustingly greedy, the many charlatans selling them as kindle ebooks, sometimes as multiple skus with different prices, trying to profit from people that don’t know any better.

I order lots of printed musical scores. The higher quality scores are $45+ a pop. Amazon frequently renders them completely useless as a work you’re supposed to be able to sight-read with your instrument. After all the folding, bending, and creasing, the books don’t even stay open properly, and the bent pages make for terrible and distracted reading. It’s depressing and an absolute shame.

That is depressing. I suppose it’s a side effect of growing too large. I’d hate to receive scores like that.

> they properly secure books to a bit of backing cardboard (with shrink-wrap and/or rubber bands, usually) and then mount the backing cardboard inside of the packing box so that the books don't slide around and get damaged.

That's how they used to do in France when they started (15-20 years ago): a base cardboard plate at the right size for the box, the stuff stacked on the cardboard, and both united by a shrink wrap. That was both simple and extremely effective, or otherwise said: great.

I don't know why they stopped. And I don't know why nobody else copied that system.

(I used to order from 2000 miles away, now I don't order books from Amazon no more, except second hand foreign language books I couldn't get otherwise.)

Here in California, I used to get books from Amazon that came in a box with appropriate bubble padding added. This worked.

If I try to order a book on Amazon today, it gets shipped in a manila envelope (with bubble padding built into the envelope). The tightness of the envelope damages the book.

I have no idea who thought this was a good idea, or even an acceptable idea.

I think the competition from local retailers is important in this. I’ve bought books from other Japanese stores, like CDJapan, and the packaging is excellent. In the UK all retailers seem to ship books poorly now. Waterstones is no better than Amazon sadly.

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