Abebooks www.abebooks.co.uk Review

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2.7 stars
Average rating for this product is: 2.7 out of 5

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jhp13's Review of Abebooks www.abebooks.co.uk

26th Oct 2006

Overall Rating

4.5 stars
  • Value for money
    4.5 stars
  • Customer service
    Excellent
  • Quality of website
    4.5 stars
  • Goods purchased & cost
    books, many items at different prices
  • Delivery
    On time

Firstly, the name of this website is AbeBooks, not AdeBooks. Secondly, yes indeed the site functions as a routing agency, holding the online stock lists of book dealers and bookshops more or less worldwide, and allowing customers to locate items, compare prices, and transmit orders plus shipping requirements to the supplier that you select, together with your credit card details so that the supplier can mail the books you ask for and debit your credit card account for total costs incurred. It's important to understand this mode of operation, because any problems and complaints etc need to be handled via the connection you make to a supplier, and not by the involvement of Abe Books. Sometimes there are shipping delays, especially if international routes and customs checks are involved, and some patience is sometimes required.

Once you understand all this, operations in my experience are well managed and quite speedy, and the range of prices on offer includes some extremely good-value offers. Suppliers display a star rating for the service that they provide, compiled from customer responses, and if you choose a supplier with a good star rating you seldom encounter, in my experience at least, any major problem. I have made very many purchases via this site over the last two years or so, with quite complicated shipping requirements, and overall I think this is a really excellent resource for building a library, searching for affordable copies or rare items, and comparing prices and editions before placing an order. Many of the suppliers who respond to book orders are prompt and cheerful, expert packers, ready to answer e-queries, also providing speedy information about the progress of pending orders. I would positively recommend this service to anyone, once the nature of what it does (and does not do) is clearly understood.

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Members' Comments onjhp13's Review

  • Guestabc on 24th Feb 2008

    Please note that Abe Books star rating system has nothing to do with the quality of the bookseller. Some very reputable book dealers only have 3 stars. The reason? The star rating system is not based on customer responses--it is based on what Abe calls "fulfilment", which in practice is a measure of how much commission Abe gets. If a bookseller charges your credit card, and Abe get their cut, then the booksellers star rating goes up--even if the bookseller never sends the book or sends a very inferior copy. ABE books can be an excellent place to buy books, but there is a great range of sellers on it, and customers need to be careful.