Where to buy books in Germany

I tried out some different portals for buying books and Amazon.de has always proved to be the right one for me. A few times before I also tried to order some books on AbeBooks.de, where the books are often the cheapest in the whole EU (one can get a 5% cashback discount thanks to the registration at iGraal),  I just wouldn´t recomend you to order books which are meant as a gift or purchase them for resale. Because the books are wrapped in a bubble envelope and sometimes are the cornes scraped due to the transportation and also the delivery time is around 10 days. Amazone packes the books thoughtfully, they have them in stock and the delivery time is around 1 - 3 working days (you have to make sure that your seller is really Amazone). Books meant for resale and already packed in a box without logo (so you don´t have to buy another wrapping or box etc.) can be bought on Buecher.de. But you have to make sure, that they have the book in stock, in other case is the delivery time relatively long. Books are the most frequent article, which I purchase in Germany...

If you need to find out, which book is the cheapest in the world (new or old), then I recomend you this website, where you can compare them: JustBooks.de.

The manual for making your own, almost for free, book cover is shown here: http://frederick41.de/buchverp.html. The best way to break the cardboard is to break it in the right direction (if possible, not perpendicular to the lateral offsets board) and cut it by a steel ruler with a snap-off knife.

Amazon Warehouse Deals

In the meantime I have only experiences with the purchase of books on Amazon Warehouse Deals, which are returned for example by other buyers. Amazon is offering them again with high percentage discounts and they also write down if there is any problem with the goods. In the same way Amazon offers many different kind of goods, which can be bought for a favourable prices. They are ofte marked as B-Ware etc. Before I thought of them as defective products, but it works like this: 

Amazone´ll receive the once sold goods back, they´ll check if the product is still functioning properly and avaluate the state of the product and at the end the product will be offered on Amazon again for a very low price as Warehouse Deal...

Used books from Amazon

I wanted to see how the used books look like, which are offered directly by Amazon warehouse. It is not just a common seller, who is also offering some goods on the portal, but their products are always marked as e. g. Warehouse Delas - which means that it´s selled by Amazon. You don´t have to pay those 3 Euros for the postage like from other users.

I was quite suprised how perfectly was the book wrapped up and the only sign of someone using it was the stamp on the lower back part of the book. It was probably a sample. 

I just took a brief look at the book, but it became really popular at home. What´s worse, there was a really long list of similar books attached to it, which I supposedly should order sometimes again :) Amazon knows how it´s done....

Creativity, inspiration,...

Shopping on Amazon

Amazon.de charmed me personally, because of the big number of english and german books, which they can offer. It´ll be probably hard at the begining to find your category, but after you find it you´ll be very pleased with it. Because Amazon shows you with every single book other titles which you might also like and what are the other users, who bought the same book, buying. In Germany are the books often sent with free postage. In the Czech republic you can send your goods through your mailbox on Mailboxde.cz.  Let´s take a closer look at the "book ordering process" shall we:

The new book Blumen & Blüten about how to draw flowers, is selling at a price of 19,99 Euros, but it´s also possible to buy an already used book. You can see on the picture, that the same book is offered by 5 other users at the price of 13,27 Euros. So it depends whether is the book meant as a gift or if it´s ok with you even if it´s a used book. The users always have to describe the conditions of the used books. Then I recomend you to look at the ratings. If the buyers give 100% in their rating, then there is nothing to fear. Some books allow you to look through them, for this to happen, there has to be a text saying Blick ins Buch. Now shall we take a look how to order a book.

We put the chosen article in into the basket by clicking on the butten "In den Einkaufswagen" after that we go straight to the cash register. Amazon will want us to register, so we will click on "Ich bin ein neuer Kunde", where we fill out our email address and we can continue with the yellow button "Weiter".

We will then fill out the registration formular, the password and the new created account will be confirmed through "Konto anlegen". In the next step we have to fill in the mailing address "Versandadresse". It´s necessary to write down your address in Germany so that the order won´t be rejected. In the line company write "Mailboxde.com", in the line for street (Straße und Hausnummer) you will write the assigned mailing address of the storehouse in Zittau: Dresdner Str. 9, BOX Nr. # (fill in your box number in place of #). Filling in your box number is very important to determine the owner of the delivery, while its being taken into our store so that it can be put on your account in our system. Also click on the butten: Ist diese Adresse auch Ihre Rechnungsadresse, so you´ll mark off, that the valid account address is different.  

We will choose the way of transportation in the next step. Free postage is for books orders.

Now we just need to pay. The fastest and cheapest way is to pay with your credit card. Because the bank isn´t charging for credit card payments. If you are not allowed to pay with your credit card, then go to your bank and establish this service into your card. 

The methods of payment will be in the next article.