Ordering books the penny-pinching expat way

In comments to this post about searching for some books for Small Boy, Junebee wrote:

Look on Am*z*n and then I guess see if the title is available in your area, if
Am*z*n does ship overseas it is probably very expensive.

Indeed, shipping is expensive. However, the price mark-up for English language books in a non-English speaking country is also pretty significant* so even with shipping charges Am*z*n is certainly competative if not always attractive. Plus the English language selection here can be limited, especially in the non-fiction department, which leans heavily towards British offerings. Not that I have a problem with British offerings, but I keep track of what's going on in the US book world far more than what's going on in the British book world; I suscribe to the New York Review of Books, after all, not the Times Literary Suppliment. When a work of non-fiction piques my interest, chances are it's coming out of, and responding to, a US-based social dialogue that I'm trying to follow from my distance. (Note to self: cut the cord already. You live in Switzerland, self!) The non-fiction I haven't been able to find in the English section of my local bookstore surprises me, though perhaps it shouldn't. (Special orders are possible, and often at no extra cost, but I don't want to spend my life special ordering, you know?)

But wait! There is also Am*z*n.de (Germany). Am*z*n Germany doesn't charge for shipping to Switzerland, and the books come much faster, though not necessarily as fast as I would have expected. But the mark-up for English language titles is in play, so the base-line prices are all higher. Sometimes I can't find what I'm looking for on Am*z*n Germany (especially in children's books) or it's only available in hardcover, making the price difference even greater. Sometimes books are published under different titles in the US and the UK (Am*z*n Germany seems to get most of its stock from the UK) and then it takes some extra patience to find what I'm looking for (the recent biography of Gertrude Bell has this title in the US and this title in the UK.) Sometimes it works out that ordering from Germany makes sense, sometimes - believe it or not - it doesn't.

But wait! There's more! Because there is also Am*z*n.uk! They do charge for shipping, but less than from the US. I can almost always find what I'm looking for there (except, again, for children's books) unless the book is a very recent US title. However, the books are generally more expensive than their US counterparts, so the lower shipping fees don't always pan out. I almost never order from the UK.

What does all this mean? It means I generally wait until I have a nice big order of books I want and then I price the whole lot through all three Am*z*ns (yeah, because I've got that kind of time). For the lot I'm about to order, ordering from the US is $20 cheaper than ordering from Germany even with the US shipping costs, plus the Germany order has two fewer books because they don't seem to be available. Ordering from the UK is $20 cheaper than ordering from the US; but again, there are two fewer books. The missing books just happen to be the "a new baby is coming" books that I want for Small Boy so they're not books I'm prepared to take a pass on. For an extra twenty bucks** it looks like this time around I'm placing one mammoth order from the US.

Do I go through this every time I want to order some books? No. For smaller orders, especially if there are no children's books involved, I order through Germany. But the price hike on the English-language titles starts kicking in at around 10 or 12 books, depending on what I'm getting, and at some point it's actually cheaper, even with shipping, to order from the US. This is one of those times.

* For example, my book club just read a book by a Swiss author that I chose to read in German. I paid SFr 14.90 (US $12.34) for the German language paperback and those of us who read it in English paid SFr 27.40 (US $22.69) for the English language paperback!

** Of course at the end of the day all of these prices get converted to Swiss Francs once I put the order on the credit card.