We just got a box of books from Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon. The package was practically armor-plated: all of the books were shrink-wrapped tightly onto a thick piece of cardboard, which was surrounded in the shipping box by multiple layers of bubble wrap.
Contrast this to the shipments we've received recently from Amazon.com, where the books are more or less bouncing around loose inside the box, and were manhandled by gorillas before they even made it into the package -- bent corners galore, scratches on the covers, weird black marks and scrapes (from rollers?) on the spines. If I wanted my books to look like they were eaten by wolves before I bought them, I'd just go shopping at the coffee shop/reading room/high-school study hall that is Barnes & Noble.
We ordered enough to get Powell's free shipping offer -- and the books arrived in a timely manner! It took weeks for my last Amazon order sent via free "Super Saver Shipping" to even make it out of the warehouse.
If it weren't for the Amazon credit card, and the lure of being able to buy the occasional CD, DVD, or electronic geegaw along with our book purchases, Amazon would be so gone.
Posted by Kevin at September 27, 2004 02:42 PM