May 26, 2007
Rising cost of international shipping
Costs are up on shipping. Is this the cost of Oil and it’s affect on transportation? who knows. All I know that shipping Internationally, and for me specifically to Australia, has gone up for both Alibris and Amazon. When viewing a book, we (NeoScholar) calculate the cost of shipping based on your country.
Within the last few months, Amazon has increased shipping from US $9.98 to $11.98.
That’s a 20% increase in international shipping costs for Amazon !
What about Alibris you ask:
When I started at the end of 2005 an Alibris International Ship was US $7.49, sometime last year it shifted to $9.98 (A 33% increase), and just recently increased again to $12.49 (Another 25% increase).
Overall for the last 18 Months, Alibris has increased their international shipping by 66%
By far the most expensive part of most books I buy is shipping. I have bought $0.01 books, but most cost about $5-7 USD.
That means that shipping is 2-3 times more expensive than the actual item (but still cheaper than some bookstores here in Australia). I don’t know why this is the case. Both Alibris and Amazon charge a flat rate for shipping, while Abebooks has the flexbility of per seller charges.
I am pretty sure that all Alibris purchases are sent to them for checking, before they are shipped out to you. This obviously makes the process more expensive, but I guess it also means there are less incorrect purchases.
I just bought two books today ( Shockwave Rider and Slaughterhouse Five ) which only had a shipping cost of US $8 per book. These were from Abebooks. Their variable shipping rates per merchant allow for better prices (internationally at least).
I’ll be keeping an eye out for more hikes, hopefully we wont see any .. or perhaps a decline?
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