Buying Gardening Books Online

Is anyone buying books online?

There are three major online book sellers in the US. Amazon is by far the largest retailer and is the only one that does not have a traditional "brick and mortar" store in addition to their online store. Borders Books has joined forces online with Amazon. Barnes & Noble is the second major retailer and Powells is a large independent bookseller in the Pacific Northwest. There are also numerous small, often specialized retailers but Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Powells offer the widest selection of mainstream titles.

In 2006 Amazon.com was listed as a $8.5 billion company with $359 million in profits by Fortune Magazine -- obviously, somebody is buying books online!

Tips for shopping at Amazon

Amazon currently (late 2006) has sites in Austria, Canada, China, France Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States as well as a spanish language version of the US site. This allows many people to purchase items in their home currency and language.

Amazon will usually be somewhat less expensive than the other large online book retailers. Since Amazon does not operate a traditional store they have lower overhead costs. In a comparison study of a very small sample of gardening books we found Amazon to be about 30% cheaper overall.

Amazon's Search Box

The single most important tool on the Amazon.com site is the Search function in the upper left of the screen. Being able to search is one of the things that separates online from "brick and mortar" stores. You can search the entire inventory in seconds to find the book you need.

There are two boxes that make up the search function. The first box is a dropdown menu of inventory categories while the second box is a place to enter your search term. Amazon sells more than just books. In fact just about every consumer item imaginable can be ordered through Amazon.

After you select a category from the first box enter a search term, such as "garden pests", and click Go. Amazon's search engine treats singular (insect) and plural (insects) forms of a search term as different, unlike some search engines. So, try both forms to see if you get different results. As an example, the following link does a search for "garden pests".

Amazon's detail pages

Amazon displays products on two different page types. The two page types are "Search Results" and "Detail". Search result pages list one or more products that match your search operation. When you click on a product title you'll be taken to the Detail page for that item. From the Detail page you can read reviews, see detailed product information and add the item to your shopping cart.

Shipping Charges

There is almost always a minimum purchase required to qualify for free shipping these days. At Amazon and Barnes & Noble the minimum is $25 while the minimum purchase at Powells is $50. So, plan ahead and buy at least the minimum since there is no point in paying a $5 shipping fee on a $20 book!