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Yes, shipping has gotten worse. I am sorry for that, as I really want to like amazon. Also: their stock notices aren't always accurate. It says "2 left, order right away", and when you do, it's sold out.
They have fancy customer service like the call-back feature. You enter your phone number, click "call me", and they call you. Very good.
Also their e-mail response is better than most online retailers.
Their website is good, even though their search engine sometimes cannot find their own product, and you have to find the book with google.
Their weakness is the shipping and packaging (and, recently, the accuracy of their stock notices), but this is what it unfortunately boils down to.
I don't know if they changed their packaging, but I have been avoiding ordering large shipments at a time, as they just throw the books into a box without fillers or extra wrapping, and the big books mess up the smaller ones during transit. Maybe they improved this...
After all, if you buy many books, I don't see a true alternative to amazon. Since online retailing of books got big, brick and mortar-bookstores have ridiculously poor stock. Anything a little off mainstream, and they don't have it (goes for Barnes & Noble and Borders).
So all you can do is use sites like this one, voice your discontent, and hope for improvement.
A thought at the end: the free shipping option regarding (weighty books) takes a lot off Amazon's margin. As for me, they could heighten the limit to 35$, or completely cancel it, and give lower shipping rates like 4$ for everything over 25$ or 35$ (but package it better, and don't let an order sit for a week before shipping).
Just don't shave costs of the key features: stock, packaging, shipping.
Last edited by EYE.image; 07-16-2007 at 11:49 PM.
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