Online shipping practices

[Foxthyme]

I live in a small isolated town, so order a lot of used and new books online. I recently received a used book order where the company, which rhymes with Incise Books Canada, took the book, opened it to the centre, flattened it out butterflied, stuck it in a manilla envelope and mailed it.

I saw that as extreme book abuse and emailed the company who said, oh, no, we do this all the time to save on shipping costs. We make sure the spine won't crack by opening and flattening the book. If it cracks we toss it. If it doesn't we ship.

Great money-saving logic, eh?

I had an eye twitch thing happening at that point. Any Canadian knows that once winter hits, that book's spine is toast no matter how it left their shipping department. My 2-1/2 hour away used bookstore will not even touch a book until it comes back to room temperature (a heated room). They say, spine cracked, book no good. Duh.

Would love to hear you opinions, comments, experiences on the matter.

[Gail]

Gee, I've used quite a few different internet and mailorder sellers and never had this happen. I'd probably attempt to send the book back and obtain a refund and certainly never patronize that seller again. Just seems weird that they would do it. Do they charge you for postage/handling on your orders?

Hope your eye has stopped twitching by now. ;)

[Daniel]

That's easily one of the most asinine things I've heard in a while -- and I hear truly asinine things all the time. I agree with Gail: I'd return the book, get a refund, and never patronize that company again.

I'm no shill, and buy most of my books locally -- being in a big city is good for that, at least -- but for the occasional online book orders I do place, Amazon.com works just fine for me. And they typically pack their books in such a way that they arrive in mint condition.

[Gail]

Daniel, I've had excellent results from Amazon, but if some don't want to patronize that big box place, Alibris is marvelous, and many of their books come from very small places around the country. Sometimes Amazon is just so big that people want to help out the little guy if they can, and that would be one way to do it. And there are some great low-profile specialty online places as well.

[Foxthyme]

I thought of shipping it back, because it definitely is damaged, however then you have to pay shipping costs and basically I'd have no 'real' refund. This way, at least, I have the book. Though I, for sure, won't order from that company again.

I can't remember if I ordered it through the used books at Amazon.ca or at Chapters, but it was through one of them. Basically once you get into the used books, even with the big companies, smaller dealers are handling the orders.

Eye twitch slowly abating.

[Kate]

bookcloseouts.com is awesome. it's overstock, so you cant always go searching for a book (especially current bestsellers) but they have loads of books!(a book addicts favorite past time...searching...salivating...)
They're cheap, quick & everything somes in great condition. i've found it a great way to try new-to-me authors as the book may only cost $3 and if you don't like it, oh well!

[Foxthyme]

Thanks for the tip!