I enjoy visiting Blackwell's bookshops, especially the deep cavernous shop in Oxford, but I have been disappointed by their website. I ordered a book which was listed as 'in stock' which turned out to be out of stock, and after waiting a while I decided to cancel my order and order from somewhere else. The website is quite nicely designed but I won't be ordering from them again until they can ensure that their 'in stock' books are 'in stock'. As well as this, other websites (amazon.co.uk etc.) tend to be cheaper and provide better service.

The one and very serious complaint I have is that Blackwells either lie about or ignore their availability statuses. Listed a book as in stock and immediate dispatch, then told me it would take an extra 3-9 days to ship.

Blackwells is a highstreet name which boasts 80 shops around the Uk and 100 years experience of providing a mail order service around Europe. www.Blackwells.co.uk is their internet based shop which claims to have a whopping 2.5 millions titles for you to browse through and purchase...so a good chance of finding what you're looking for!

I discovered blackwells.co.uk when searching for a rather obscure book on robotics a little while back and have been a loyal customer ever since. My usual sources of books(the likes of amazon and whsmith) had let me down badly by not stocking the item or by promising to take a ridiculously long time to deliver it so I went hunting around and found this site. Not only would they deliver within a few days, but they also had the best price of all the sites I had visited! I learned later that blackwells.co.uk is a leading source of academic and technical books so it's absolutely invaluable for anyone taking a university course or looking for something a little more technical or complicated than the usual kind of high street offerings. You're bound to find what you are looking for here.

Navigating the site is something of a nuisance though, so don't expect to come here and just browse around like you would elsewhere. Unless you use the search facility to find a specific title or go by a keyword and browse the search list, you won't get very far at all. Browsing around is something I like to do but it's not possible here - a minor gripe but a valid one I feel.

When you DO find what you are looking for (which isn't too difficult - the search engine is very intuitive) then the site really comes into its own. There is an awful lot of information about each individual book which is really helpful to make a purchasing decision!

Ordering is simple and you can track the progress of the order every step of the way. They email at each stage of the process which is nice as well. Delivery is both free and prompt and has always been correct whenever I've used them. I am really impressed by them in most respects other than the browsing limitations.

As with all websites it's good to search around for the best price but blackwells.co.uk does seem to have good prices and good service too, so well worth a look next time you are looking for a book.