5 ms·

Show HN: Find the cheapest Amazon for your books

30 points by k33l0r 13y ago

helen842000 13y ago
This could be quite useful to students or those that order a bulk number of books regularly. I would include the word 'country' in the title. You should have a bottom line conversion into a currency that is understandable to the user so they can see the overall price difference. I know you highlight the cheapest - but it should be shown to the user so they know what the saving is. Some improvements do need to be made as some prices were blank / not pulled through but when I checked directly they were significantly cheaper than the one that was highlighted.
- fxthea 13y ago
  Cool idea and agreed with needing the word "country" in the title. I didn't know what the site was for when I first came in. I had to click on a book in your "Try these" list to understand. Maybe include a sub-title that says "Not all books are priced the same on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, etc. Search to find which Amazon country-specific website has the cheapest price to buy your books."
  - k33l0r 13y ago
    Thanks for that, I paraphrased your suggestion almost directly to the site. The change will be online soonish.
- k33l0r 13y ago
  Thanks for the feedback, I'm adding a row with converted totals at the moment. Some of the prices are blank because of the way different editions of the same book are available in different countries. Also, if that specific edition of the book was only available from third party sellers the price will not be shown.
35pr17 13y ago
Nice! working on something similar but not limited to Amazon stores only http://www.librarist.com/ http://www.librarist.com/
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
biot 13y ago
"We can't search for anything if this is empty :-(" It's not empty though... it says "chad fowler". I understand this is just a placeholder, but for those who aren't developers and may not appreciate the difference, clicking search when the input field is empty should perform a search for the placeholder text.
- k33l0r 13y ago
  Thanks. I fixed that for the moment by removing the placeholder. Will have to think of a better way of suggesting searches to users.
- derefr 13y ago
  Huh, never considered this before. If I had a placeholder username/password on my login box, should just clicking "login" take the user to a demo/guest account, or should it bounce them and tell them to fill it in? What would be more expected there?
  - biot 13y ago
    The general principle here is that if your field has a placeholder which is descriptive such as "Enter search here" (or just "Search") then it's a bad user experience if submitting the form does a search for the literal text "Enter search here". However, if the placeholder is a valid example such as "Isaac Asimov", then it's a good user experience if submitting the form does a search for that actual text, especially where trying out the search is a primary means of demonstrating the product as is the case here. Another example might be a flight search service where the placeholders for "Departing" and "Arriving" contain "Los Angeles" and "New York" plus valid leave/return dates. If you're trying to show people (who may not be actively looking for a flight at the time) how awesome your service is, clicking on the "Show Flights" button should use those values because the whole point is to demonstrate your service's unique selling proposition. For a login/demo where your goal is to get people to try the demo and convert into a signup, I suspect you will find it more effective to offer trying a demo account via an obvious, in-your-face call to action rather than dual-purposing your customer login form.
jayshahtx 13y ago
It would be good to convert all prices to a single currency, I understand these change daily but I'm sure you could find a real time quote to track/use. I like the design a lot, very clean. Hats off!
omegant 13y ago
I´ve been doing this manually for years, great job. Just include amazon.es please ;). It would be interesting to have the possibility to change the shipping option. Shipping from amazon.com with the cheapest option takes a month or more to reach Spain, so sometimes is better to pay a bit more to avoid that.
tunnuz 13y ago
Clever idea, nice design and great service! What are the chances that you add Amazon.it as well?
hh22 13y ago
This may be a technical problem, but it's hard to really know the best price of a book when you exclude used books from third-party sellers. For example I found a $70 book that was in the $60 range on a foreign site, but then if you clicked through on the US site you could find one for $45 that was slightly used. Without that kind of contextual information the site is less useful.
- aeurielesn 13y ago
  It may be less useful for your particular case but I found it an amazing tool. I want new books and I didn't know that the German site had the book I was looking for in half the price although three weeks delivery at most.
patd 13y ago
Well done. I'm building something slightly similar : http://www.shoptimate.com http://www.shoptimate.com But it's browser extension, not a website and it's not limited to books or Amazon. Note that shipping from a foreign country can lead to custom taxes.
smartial_arts 13y ago
booko.com.au is a similar Australian site, although it doesn't limit itself to only Amazon.
joepour 13y ago
This is great! As someone who moved from London to Sydney it is just what I need, I never know whether to order from the .com store or the .co.uk store.
- nubbie 13y ago
  You might find http://booko.com.au/ http://booko.com.au/ useful
  - joepour 13y ago
    Great, thanks! I shall bookmark that for later.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - dkam 13y ago
    Hey that's my site - thanks for mentioning it! There's also a UK, NZ and US site( http://booko.us/ http://booko.us/ ) now.
    - nickzoic 13y ago
      Wow. Thanks for saving me umpteen bucks over the last few years.
bonchibuji 13y ago
It seems not to take ASIN numbers.
tnorthcutt 13y ago
I tried it with the first several suggested books, and they all showed .com as the cheapest. You might want to consider hand-picking a few that will show up for [country] users as cheaper from [other country] store, to better demonstrate the utility of the service.
wingspan 13y ago
I typically use http://bigwords.com http://bigwords.com for multi-book price comparison; it gives you the cheapest total price with shipping, and allows you to tweak parameters (new/used, internation, etc).

30 points by k33l0r 13y ago

helen842000 13y ago

This could be quite useful to students or those that order a bulk number of books regularly. I would include the word 'country' in the title. You should have a bottom line conversion into a currency that is understandable to the user so they can see the overall price difference. I know you highlight the cheapest - but it should be shown to the user so they know what the saving is. Some improvements do need to be made as some prices were blank / not pulled through but when I checked directly they were significantly cheaper than the one that was highlighted.

fxthea 13y ago
Cool idea and agreed with needing the word "country" in the title. I didn't know what the site was for when I first came in. I had to click on a book in your "Try these" list to understand. Maybe include a sub-title that says "Not all books are priced the same on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, etc. Search to find which Amazon country-specific website has the cheapest price to buy your books."
- k33l0r 13y ago
  Thanks for that, I paraphrased your suggestion almost directly to the site. The change will be online soonish.
k33l0r 13y ago
Thanks for the feedback, I'm adding a row with converted totals at the moment. Some of the prices are blank because of the way different editions of the same book are available in different countries. Also, if that specific edition of the book was only available from third party sellers the price will not be shown.

35pr17 13y ago

Nice! working on something similar but not limited to Amazon stores only http://www.librarist.com/ http://www.librarist.com/

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

biot 13y ago

"We can't search for anything if this is empty :-(" It's not empty though... it says "chad fowler". I understand this is just a placeholder, but for those who aren't developers and may not appreciate the difference, clicking search when the input field is empty should perform a search for the placeholder text.

k33l0r 13y ago
Thanks. I fixed that for the moment by removing the placeholder. Will have to think of a better way of suggesting searches to users.
derefr 13y ago
Huh, never considered this before. If I had a placeholder username/password on my login box, should just clicking "login" take the user to a demo/guest account, or should it bounce them and tell them to fill it in? What would be more expected there?
- biot 13y ago
  The general principle here is that if your field has a placeholder which is descriptive such as "Enter search here" (or just "Search") then it's a bad user experience if submitting the form does a search for the literal text "Enter search here". However, if the placeholder is a valid example such as "Isaac Asimov", then it's a good user experience if submitting the form does a search for that actual text, especially where trying out the search is a primary means of demonstrating the product as is the case here. Another example might be a flight search service where the placeholders for "Departing" and "Arriving" contain "Los Angeles" and "New York" plus valid leave/return dates. If you're trying to show people (who may not be actively looking for a flight at the time) how awesome your service is, clicking on the "Show Flights" button should use those values because the whole point is to demonstrate your service's unique selling proposition. For a login/demo where your goal is to get people to try the demo and convert into a signup, I suspect you will find it more effective to offer trying a demo account via an obvious, in-your-face call to action rather than dual-purposing your customer login form.

jayshahtx 13y ago

It would be good to convert all prices to a single currency, I understand these change daily but I'm sure you could find a real time quote to track/use. I like the design a lot, very clean. Hats off!

omegant 13y ago

I´ve been doing this manually for years, great job. Just include amazon.es please ;). It would be interesting to have the possibility to change the shipping option. Shipping from amazon.com with the cheapest option takes a month or more to reach Spain, so sometimes is better to pay a bit more to avoid that.

tunnuz 13y ago

Clever idea, nice design and great service! What are the chances that you add Amazon.it as well?

hh22 13y ago

This may be a technical problem, but it's hard to really know the best price of a book when you exclude used books from third-party sellers. For example I found a $70 book that was in the $60 range on a foreign site, but then if you clicked through on the US site you could find one for $45 that was slightly used. Without that kind of contextual information the site is less useful.

aeurielesn 13y ago
It may be less useful for your particular case but I found it an amazing tool. I want new books and I didn't know that the German site had the book I was looking for in half the price although three weeks delivery at most.

patd 13y ago

Well done. I'm building something slightly similar : http://www.shoptimate.com http://www.shoptimate.com But it's browser extension, not a website and it's not limited to books or Amazon. Note that shipping from a foreign country can lead to custom taxes.

smartial_arts 13y ago

booko.com.au is a similar Australian site, although it doesn't limit itself to only Amazon.

joepour 13y ago

This is great! As someone who moved from London to Sydney it is just what I need, I never know whether to order from the .com store or the .co.uk store.

nubbie 13y ago
You might find http://booko.com.au/ http://booko.com.au/ useful
- joepour 13y ago
  Great, thanks! I shall bookmark that for later.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dkam 13y ago
  Hey that's my site - thanks for mentioning it! There's also a UK, NZ and US site( http://booko.us/ http://booko.us/ ) now.
  - nickzoic 13y ago
    Wow. Thanks for saving me umpteen bucks over the last few years.

bonchibuji 13y ago

It seems not to take ASIN numbers.

tnorthcutt 13y ago

I tried it with the first several suggested books, and they all showed .com as the cheapest. You might want to consider hand-picking a few that will show up for [country] users as cheaper from [other country] store, to better demonstrate the utility of the service.

wingspan 13y ago

I typically use http://bigwords.com http://bigwords.com for multi-book price comparison; it gives you the cheapest total price with shipping, and allows you to tweak parameters (new/used, internation, etc).