Show HN: Compare book prices across Amazon, Wordery, and the Book Depository | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Compare book prices across Amazon, Wordery, and the Book Depository

piranhas.co

42 pointsk33l0r36 comments

there are 100s of such services out there (most query many more retailers to find the lowest price) + some offer API access so you can do revenue sharing.

the biggest player in the space is http://bigwords.com

I used to use a couple of competitors, but I was pretty dissatisfied with them all. I thought I could do better, hence the site...

bigwords.com also only seems to work for textbooks.

You should check out my startup's site: Texts.com. We compare prices across sites like B&N, Chegg, ValoreBooks, and others. While it's targeted towards textbooks, it works very well for just about any book.

For a timesaving tip, you can type any ISBN or keyword (title, author, etc), directly into the URL to save a few seconds. IE:

http://texts.com/b/Steve Jobs Walter

http://texts.com/b/Steve%20Jobs%20Walter

http://texts.com/books/9781451648539

bigwords works for any book, simply search by ISBN

Another great alternative for this is booko.com.au.

Very nice!

Amazon offers multiple different kinds of shipping with different prices. (I expect the other vendors do too, but haven't checked.) It looks as if Piranhas picks the default, but I'm a cheapskate and rarely have an emergency need for a book, and therefore tend to choose "super saver" delivery for any items it's available for. If we're comparing against shipping from overseas, this is clearly pretty reasonable.

It would be very cool if you could, e.g., indicate how quickly you want a book, and have Piranhas choose an appropriate shipping option for each vendor.

Thanks for the feedback.

A shopping cart approach is something I've thought about, but I'm not sure when I'll have the time and/or energy to get it done…

I submitted this sometime ago when I first launched it, but it's recently undergone a fairly major redesign (basically a full rewrite of both the front- and backends).

Very snazzy - looking forward to HTTPS. :)

Book Depository is a weird thing; for a couple of years, I was unable to buy books there, because they had met some kind of weird quota for my country. Wonder what was up with that, but I assume it has to do with some tax-dodging deal in Jersey or wherever they're based.

Book Depository used to have, for some books, much better deals than Amazon. Then it got bought by Amazon, and prices are pretty much equivalent now.

I remember I bought a book probably one or two years ago and it was available on Amazon (but it was sold by BD behind) and directly by BD and BD was cheaper.

What is the benefit of searching five different national versions of Amazon?

It's mostly useful for those of us who don't actually live in a country with an Amazon “presence”, so to speak. I can never really be sure which Amazon will be cheapest for me here in Finland.

One narrow use case would be textbook shopping. I don't understand the underlying reasons, but the prices of textbooks between e.g. Canada and the UK can be substantial, and more than enough to justify shipping overseas.

This is nice. Some years ago, I used a site called "bestbookdeal" that did pretty much the same thing.

One improvement that I would very much like to see is the ability to search for a set of books at once.

like the simplicity. Maybe factor in used books and kindle versions? I almost never buy new books anymore. Also, half.com often have cheaper prices than amazon.

For ebooks I prefer http://inkmesh.com/ and http://luzme.com/. In Lulzme you can also add wanting to read list. And when price falls you get mail. Interestingly most of the books are cheaper on amazon.uk than on amazon.com. And sometimes Kobobooks has cheaper books but that rarely happen.

Why doesn't this do used books? Why no alibris? Most books I do end up purchasing are not new. This site wouldn't be of immediate use to me.

I never heard of Book Depository before but it's cheaper than Amazon for most of the books on my wantlist. Neat! Thanks for posting.

You're welcome! The Book Depository was actually founded by some ex-Amazon employees. Amazon bought them a couple of years ago.

I just came across the Book Depository a few weeks ago and tried ordering a couple of books.

On the downside, the books didn't ship for a week and I wasn't told there would be a delay (I just double-checked the order confirmation) or that a delay had arisen; I assumed the books had shipped until they told me a week later that they had just been mailed. When I asked why, they said they were having trouble sourcing them with suppliers. While these aren't best sellers, they are leading books in their field and commonly used in college classes on the subject. Also, shipping from the UK to the US takes a little while.

The upside is that shipping is free and that their mission sounds encouraging: (from their About page: http://www.bookdepository.com/aboutus#helpContent)

"Founded in 2004 to make 'All Books available to All' we focus on selling 'less of more' rather than 'more of less', differentiating ourselves from other retailers who increasingly focus on bestsellers."

"The Long Tail: why are we making as many books available as possible?

Of the 30 million titles ever printed in the English language only a few million of these are in print. We are seeking to make available as many of these titles as possible (and working to do the same with foreign language titles). This way, we will have the largest breadth of titles available in the world. Where books are no longer in print or poorly available we are seeking to make them available again by republishing. We do this through our Dodo Press imprint."

Really nice site, the interface looks really good and I'm very pleased to see the shipping price is also included in the listing.

This is super. Simple, easy interface. Search results are presented very nicely: clear and easy to scan. Excellent work. Bookmarked!

Thanks!

Brilliant , i always do this manually. It would be better, at least for me , if you could add also amazon.es :-). Thank you.

Amazon.es is on my todo list. I should get round to it relatively soon…

Another website called dealoz.com provides the same service for books and a whole bunch of things like electronics.

There is a swedish version of this at http://bokfynd.nu

For an Australian version: http://www.booko.com

Is there a reason why Barnes and Noble prices aren't included in the comparison?

Sweet, I'll use your website next time. :-)

Thanks, and as Borat says, "big success"!

Great work.Would be cool if it shows ebook prices too when I do the search.

Well done! I too often make these comparisons manually.

Thanks

Why these three? Are you based in the UK?

Also, what is Wordery; I hadn't heard of them. Why would I buy a book there rather than someplace else, other than price?

pretty cool!

Is there a way to show what type(paperback, mp3, etc) somewhere in the title ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com