Where to buy books from?

[Goodbyeman]

I want to know where should I order my go books.
I live in south-eastern Europe, not in EU.
I am mostly interested in English books, but would also like to buy some foreign tsumego collection( Lee Changho Tesuji, for example).
I remember there was a book store in EU that offered free shipping on orders over $100, and one store(in Australia?) that also offered free shipping, but I don't remember names of these stores...

[Twitchy Go]

I want to know where should I order my go books.
I live in south-eastern Europe, not in EU.
I am mostly interested in English books, but would also like to buy some foreign tsumego collection( Lee Changho Tesuji, for example).
I remember there was a book store in EU that offered free shipping on orders over $100, and one store(in Australia?) that also offered free shipping, but I don't remember names of these stores...

The publishers I know are Slate and Shell, Yutopian, and Kisedo. I'm unsure where they all ship though, but good chance they ship in Europe.

Also there is Gogameguru(that's the Australian one your thinking of I bet), they expanded their buisness recently and now have warehouses in U.S, Europe, and Australia so there shouldn't be crazy airmail rates. They're my preferred site for go books.

[RobertJasiek]

If you look for great variety of books, then the first retailers to be considered in Europe are Schaak en Go Winkel het Paard and Hebsacker Verlag. There are a number of further retailers such as Variantes, Gaimport, Blumberg, a few national go association or club stores with usually a restricted choice and sale of a publisher's own products such as GoGoD and myself. Overseas retailers ship to Europe, but postage would be higher, I'd guess. Gogameguru is reflecting about establishing shipping directly from Europe in a couple of months?

[gogameguru]

Gogameguru is reflecting about establishing shipping directly from Europe in a couple of months?

We've been shipping books from Europe (the UK) for about a year now. We also ship from the USA and Australia. Please stop saying that we don't.

[RobertJasiek]

Ok, I did not know. Here is some information:
http://gogameguru.com/go-game-shop-faq/ ... ipped-from
I have just checked an ordinary book and got "Royal Mail Airmail $5.70" as the not so cheap postage to a few other European countries (unfortunately, Royal Mail is not the cheapest postal service in Europe for airmail). Maybe it is worth considering to offer also "Small packet" (i.e. surface mail) as another option? The other options "Parcelforce Global Express $60.94" and "UPS Saver $114.12" are, eh, interesting:)

[gogameguru]

Domestically (within the UK, US or Australia) we do use ground services. Currently we don't offer ground/surface shipping for international orders because it's too slow and the majority of people didn't like it (there will be outliers of course). Also, it seems to be less reliable in my experience.

I'm not sure precisely which book you got a quote for, and the price will change based on the size and weight of each book, but let's use Attack and Defense as an example (you can add it to the cart and enter a postcode etc to verify what I'm telling you). For the sake of discussion, assume that Attack and Defense weighs 256g, with dimensions 18cm x 13cm x 1cm.

A customer can ship that book to Eastern Europe at the following prices and service levels:

Royal Mail Surface Mail: £3.56 - ~$5.64 USD - ~ 5 weeks for delivery

Royal Mail Airmail: £3.62 - ~$5.74 USD - ~ 1 week for delivery

We don't pass on packaging and handling costs (we absorb those in our margins), so the quoted shipping price is exactly what the mail service charges, adjusted with the daily exchange rate if you're using a different currency.

So for a wait of an extra 4 weeks (or more) the customer can save themselves $0.10, or $0.0035 per day waiting. Is that worthwhile? Approximately what proportion of customers do you think would want to do that?

By offering airmail as the cheapest option we make sure that the majority of customers have a good experience. Most people checkout with the cheapest postage option without checking the service levels. They're too busy to research everything and assume that we've made a good postage choice for them.

If we choose surface mail for them in that scenario, a lot of people will be unhappy with the choice when the book hasn't arrived after a month or so. They will think it's been lost and will contact us to ask for a refund or replacement.

Also, for the more expensive postage options, they don't make much sense when sending one book to Europe, but they can start to make sense for larger purchases or products other than books. When shipping domestically or to other parts of the world, there are many more sensible postage options depending on whether a customer wants to add registered/signed for, express or insurance services.

Keep in mind that within the next few months we'll start selling Go boards and other equipment, ranging in price from about $20 to $10,000. Some of the shipping carrier options are predicated on that. We assume that if someone is going to upgrade to a more expensive postage option, they'll think more carefully about what they're paying for. Some people want to get a last minute gift for their son or daughter and the most important thing is that it arrives within 24 or 48 hours, for example.

At some point in the future, if business goes well, we might start storing products in Continental Europe, South America and/or Asia, for shipping by ground in those regions. Currently that would be stretching ourselves too thin.

[RobertJasiek]

Thank you for your detailed explanation!

Of course, 10c less do not justify surface mail!:)

I have just checked and the prices are higher than what I recall; maybe they have increased them:
http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/deliv ... ail/prices

Contrary to its reputation among UK sellers (ebay/Amazon), Royal Mail surface mail (small packet) is reliable, at least IMX to Germany. Many items bought, none lost, none damaged (if reasonably packed), average transport duration about 15 days. But... given the current prices, it is indeed not an attractive option for books within Europe.