For The Book Buyers Out There

[sexualbanana]

I was at Chapters today and came across a bunch of books that I was interested in buying. Normally when I book my books, I buy them one at a time so it's never been a big issue to me, but my problem became pretty apparent when I decided to buy multiple books.

With the exchange rate where it is, does Chapters still use the different pricing based on the country (ie. US $x and Canada $y)

And, would I be better off ordering from Amazon.com or .ca?

The dilemma I have right now can be shown like this

Book A
Listed price (US):$24.95
Listed price (CAD): $29.00
Amazon.com price (US): $16.47
Amazon.com exchanged price (CAD): $16.30
* based on xe.com
I know I won't be exchanging directly at par, but I figure it won't be far off from that with my credit card company, I hope.
Amazon.ca price (CAD): $18.18

This is just one book. For a few of them the price difference is even bigger where the cost savings for all the books would be somewhere in the $60-$70 range

[Maybelater]

I think it depends on the publisher? I've bought books at Chapters recently that still cost most in Canada then the USA.

[Mixalot27]

It's not just books but pretty much everything. The deciding factor to me usually becomes whether I need it right away or if I can wait a few days/weeks for shipping from the US. I've bought several thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from the US in the last year and I would estimate that in the end I paid about 60% - 70% of the cost that I would have buying locally, and that is after shipping, customs, etc. Also the selection is far better in the US. It just comes down to convenience or price, which is more important to you for your item. Ex. buy your snacks and pop at 7-11 and pay a huge premium because they're open 24/7 or plan ahead and get the shit at Walmart for a much cheaper price.

[Thaco]

kindle... nuff said

[sexualbanana]

Originally posted by Mixalot27
It's not just books but pretty much everything. The deciding factor to me usually becomes whether I need it right away or if I can wait a few days/weeks for shipping from the US.

That's why I didn't really care when I would buy a book at a time. But when you're buying like three or four at a time, the difference adds up quickly.

[HyperZell]

Originally posted by sexualbanana
I was at Chapters today and came across a bunch of books that I was interested in buying. Normally when I book my books, I buy them one at a time so it's never been a big issue to me, but my problem became pretty apparent when I decided to buy multiple books.


Normally when I book my books, I like to book it to a book so I can book while I book.


Seriously though, I almost always get my books off Amazon, and I've noticed lately that a lot of them are the same price or close to their American equivalents. I've got no problem getting my books online that way.

[eblend]

Most CCs charge 2.5% for currency exchange, so factor that in, as well as I believe the free shipping deals dont apply from amazon.com, so factor those things into your decision. Also, keep in mind, if the item is available online from .ca and .com, and you place an order on .com, it will ship from the same place as a .ca order would have, so the time it takes to arrive would not be different between the two

[schocker]

One thing I noticed is that the instore price at chapters is significantly more than buying it online. I was buying my project management book for mru and called the store to put it on hold and asked the price and it was much higher than buying it online through their web store :nut:

[arian_ma]

Doesn't Amazon (or most websites) charge your CC in CAD and do the conversion for you on their end?

[sexualbanana]

Originally posted by eblend
Most CCs charge 2.5% for currency exchange, so factor that in, as well as I believe the free shipping deals dont apply from amazon.com, so factor those things into your decision. Also, keep in mind, if the item is available online from .ca and .com, and you place an order on .com, it will ship from the same place as a .ca order would have, so the time it takes to arrive would not be different between the two

Even with the 2.5% and the shipping charge, I still save a fairly significant amount (when I ordered this morning).

The exchange is close enough to par that, imo, the 2.5% is negligible. And even with the $16 I pay in shipping, I still saved $40 instead of $60 (factoring in the exchange as well)

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by Thaco
kindle... nuff said

Agreed...buy a kindle and you never need to buy a book again, so it pays for itself pretty quick if you read a lot.

[sexualbanana]

Wouldn't I still have to buy books off Amazon?

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by sexualbanana
Wouldn't I still have to buy books off Amazon?

You can download books just like you can your music with torrents and the like, but if you do choose to buy the books, they are typically $10 or less, so it's much cheaper than the hard copy of the book anyways. There are converters to make whatever your download into a format the Kindle can read. The Sony e-readers can read word files and PDF's, eliminating the need for conversion, but I am not sure if the newer Kindles can or not. If there's the odd book you can't find to download, or even half of them, you can just buy it for $10 or less. You'll come out ahead either way, even if you actually pay for every single book.

Regardless of what you do, if you read a lot, an e-reader is the way to go.

[eblend]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt


You can download books just like you can your music with torrents and the like, but if you do choose to buy the books, they are typically $10 or less, so it's much cheaper than the hard copy of the book anyways. There are converters to make whatever your download into a format the Kindle can read. The Sony e-readers can read word files and PDF's, eliminating the need for conversion, but I am not sure if the newer Kindles can or not. If there's the odd book you can't find to download, or even half of them, you can just buy it for $10 or less. You'll come out ahead either way, even if you actually pay for every single book.

Regardless of what you do, if you read a lot, an e-reader is the way to go.

How does one get those ebooks onto the kindle? I am curious, I have the kindle app on my touchpad and it seems to sink the books with amazon site, is there a way to load those books into kindle by placing them somewhere in the file system ect? I guess I just want to know the basics of the ebook downloading, as I have never done any ebooks

[D'z Nutz]

Originally posted by eblend
How does one get those ebooks onto the kindle?

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Or just connect the kindle to your computer via USB and drag and drop since the computer just recognizes it as an external storage device.

[ddduke]

Why don't you try a store like fair's fair? That's where I buy all my books and it's pretty rare that they don't have something that I'm looking for.

[Thaco]

you cant email books with calibre to the kindle app, only the dedicated kindle it's self.

drag and drop i cant say as i have never tried it that way.