What are you awaiting in the mail?

[MikeBloke]

I feel the site can be quite cluttered, and isn't always clear whats going on. Looking at amazon.ca, it does actualy look slightly better, slightly more spaced out, less text. "We have recommendations for you " an attempt by them to give a human touch (which is rather, a computer just searching for other items in the same categories as past purchases) slightly ticks me off for some reason.

The price thing I find very annoying, not so much for the tarot deck I bought from there, but just general stuff what I've bought before. On price checkers, its not Amazons price that gets listed under the Amazon name as the cheapest, but rather someones second hand copy, or an import from america or china thats going to take weeks or months to deliver.

Hehe, Amazon is just a personal hate of mine, it lies next to Microsoft and PC world which are sat upon silk lined thrones with their hairy legs hidden in the piles of copper coins they've earnt from overpricing. I'm sure its a perfectly fine site to buy from, a lot of friends and family use it fine, so it must be being mean to me.

 

[truelighth]

Hi truelighth,

they are two new releases from a German publisher called Arun. I'm getting their catalogue, since they publish a lot of nordic-oriented pagan/folklore stuff.

Here's their website: http://www.arun-verlag.de/

The catalogue says publication date will be March, but gives no pictures... grr... so might scratch them off the list again, but for now they are on my radar.

Cheers
Morwenna

Thanks Morwenna. I usually only find out about the German releases when they are already out and Amazon.de sells them. I will keep an eye on these too .

 

[Aulruna]

Amazon.de vs Amazon.com

Well, I order from Amazon.de (the German site) for many years now, and it came as a real blessing to me. They started business when it was nearly impossible to get special interest books in another language. Bookshops would store all the bestsellers, but pagan/esoteric/occult? No way. Ordering thtough a shop meant months of waiting time and impossibly high charges.

Amazon changed all that.

I gave two other online bookstores a try in those early days, and both screwed up completely! Amazon.de never did. They deliver fast, give you lots of shiping options, and email well in advance in the rare cases when there's a delay.
However, we have that thing called "book price binding" in German, virtually forbidding to sell book at discounted prices. Discounts can only be aapplied to rest exemplars of a printing, books marked as faulty, and special editions. So price comparisons are not really an issue here. (And also for me as an author it means I don't have to care from which source a book is bought, because my royalties depend solely on the calculated net sales price.)

The one thing I don't like about Amazon, if you put up an order for the second hand sellers, anyone can snatch it up, even a seller with a bad feedback rate. The money will be drawn from your account and the insuance only applies for sellers with a minimum rating of three starts - which you can't control if you issued a search order! I had a problem with this once, and they were fast and tolerant in fixing it, but the flaw in the system itself is still there, which is why I don't use that service any more.

// end Amazon rant ;-))

Morwenna

 

[gregory]

Do you think maybe amazon is more reliable in one county than in another?

Bar

Absol - expletive thought loudly here - utely.

I have ordered from amazon.de and amazon.ca. No problems. Amazon.com has usually been OK. Amazon.uk USED to be but now........................

 

[firefrost]

I did get a book by my favourite author that was on order, awaiting release immediately on the release date (nothing to do with tarot) but Amazon UK is painfully slow with other things. And it's a big mistake to order two things to qualify for free p+p, because I'll guarantee one item won't be in stock, so you have to wait even longer for them both.

Jan

 

[jackdaw*]

Tarot-related: am waiting for "A Wicked Pack of Cards" by Dummett et al from eBay. Got a little overexcited in the bidding, so had to compensate by going for surface mail from the UK ... going to be a long 4-6 weeks!

 

[gregory]

When you get it, could we have a word ? Someone I know is trying to locate a quote.....

Were you thinking of being in Ontario over Easter BTW ????!

 

[firefrost]

I saw that and gave it some thought. Tell us what you think when you get it, please?

Jan

 

[jackdaw*]

Jan and Gregory, I will post when I receive it, and in the Books and Media to give my impressions. If when I do you would like to know anything specific, by all means let me know!

And Gregory, I would love to meet up with you in Ontario, but airfare is insanely expensive within Canada (damn monopolies!) for someone with a low salary, student husband and Tarot habit. My family in Newfoundland is already grumbling why I haven't visited in 2 1/2 years

QofP

 

[zazen]

Thanks

Thanks gregory, annabelle and others,

All good ideas - now I just need to overcome my paranoia and action one of them and then I'll be awaiting lots of goodies

Tim