Cost of books in Europe

[johnmck]

There appears to be a massive difference in the cost of books between China and Europe. For example:

New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook 2

shop.aaawww.net (China) 7.25 US dollars

amazon.co.uk 82.02 uk pounds (154.04 US dollars)

amazon.fr 124.03 euros (147.69 US dollars)

And the amazon prices are for second-hand books.

Does anyone outside of Asia have experience of ordering from shop.aaawww.net?

Regards,

John.

[roddy]

The catchily named shop.aaawww.net appears to be the same as lovemandarin.com, mentioned here.

They have a representative or two on here who post quite frequently about their services, which I let them do as they're fairly open about it, rather than pretending to be a 'customer' and keep it fairly relevant. Paying by Western Union or international bank transfer is going to incur fees, but perhaps Paypal's new Chinese service will help in this respect.

Are those Amazon prices for full sets, or including tapes / CDs or something? Looks ridiculous.

Roddy

[Long Zhiren]

I noticed that even the US prices are relatively low, but not as low as China's. Here's that New Practical Chinese Reader for less than US$30 in the US:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/7561913192/qid=1128356400/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl14/103-1804444-8513423?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Two questions.

Does Europe slap big taxes on books? I thought that, at least, the UK didn't.

Are the Chinese textbooks pirated? This used to be a common thing for textbooks in every field about fifteen years ago.

[johnmck]

Thank you for your answers.

There are no sales taxes on books in the UK. I have searched again on amazon and have found that if you search "New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook" you only get secondhand books but if you search "New Practical Chinese Reader" on the UK site you get the new books which are cheaper (about 20 pounds, still 4 times the cost of the books in China) but only books 1 and 2 are avaliable. (The French site only has stupid prices).

I had not noticed that they only accept money transfers or Western Union. Does anyone have an idea of how much it costs to use Western Union?

John.

[elina]

I work for this website: www.lovemandarin.com, and I’m afraid that John post a wrong link about the book, it should be:

New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook 2

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=318177&userid=7912&catid=493986

USD 8.38

The price of 7.25 US dollars is for New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook 1

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=318134&userid=7912&catid=493986

Let’s say New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook 2, the price of USD 8.38 is for the book only, the total price should add the transportation fee:

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/fsql.php?id=217544&userid=7912

And also there’s an extra handling charge when transfer the remittance, it’s about 15% which is different from country to country, from bank to bank:

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/fsql.php?id=217547&userid=7912

If choosing the distributing method of ordinary mail of China Post by sea, the grand total price is still cheaper than those in amazon in US. The cheap reasons are:

1. we buy the book directly from the relevant publishing company, there is no middleman in the whole process. This can cut down the cost.

2. everything in China is cheaper than in Europe or US, for example: personnel salary, house rent, etc. So we can run well even if making less profit.

One more thing I’d like to explain:

We use a website template to build our website. That means there is a website programme which is already designed well, then we just upload our all materials including products’ pictures and explanations, i.e. self-build website, in Chinese we call “Zi Zhu Jian Wang Zhan / 自助建网站”. Because of the website template, it already designed the price of the product is in RMB (Yuan), but our customers are inside China mainland as well as outside China mainland. So we put both RMB price and USD price in the detailed information of every product, but in Shopping Cart we use USD price. For example, the book which you are interested:

New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook 2

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=318177&userid=7912&catid=493986

There are two prices on our site:

price: RMB 67.00yuan

price: USD 8.38

That means if the customers is inside China mainland, he will pay RMB 67.00yuan for the book, if the customers is outside China mainland, he will pay USD 8.38 for the book. RMB 67.00yuan is the original price of the book which was printed on the back cover of the book, and USD 8.38 = RMB 67.00yuan / 8

At present, we are looking for a good web design company to redesign our website, so that it can be more intelligentized and convenient. The new website will come out in early next year.

[Long Zhiren]

For cost of Western Union, try querying on a tripadvisor forum:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g187070-France-Vacations.html

The one for France is very lively (a lot of daily traffic by people actively jet-setting to varous places) in case you're there. If you drop in on the China forum, etc, you could conceivably find a potential courier...

[Shadowdh]

Heck those prices seem pretty ridiculous especially as I got them for about 12.95 and 16.95 for the first and 2nd reader... Grant and Cutler in London... more than it would have been from Elina but I am impatient and couldnt wait...

[johnmck]

That's more like it. I guess Amazon is not the place to buy Chinese books.

[Jun Heng Clinic]

Johnmck wrote:-

"That's more like it. I guess Amazon is not the place to buy Chinese books."

Jun Heng Clinic writes:-

Yes, John. I just searched for a book in English called "Bi Syndromes: Rheumatic Disorders Treated by Traditional Chinese Medicine". They're selling it (through their 'used' books selling method) at GBP 154.11.

I then rang www.balancehealthcare.com (in the UK) and got the book for a little over GBP 20.00.

I don't know anything about the different selling options on Amazon, but it looks like they enable third parties to advertise and sell on their site (if they're vetted in some way, I presume). My theory is that businesses have discovered a 'happy hunting ground' here. They look for books that Amazon does not stock, then offer them at ridiculous prices - even though there ARE suppliers around who offer these books at reasonable prices. They are hoping that people will think that because it is not on Amazon then it must be out of print. They then make a killing. That's just my theory.

If you're looking for European books, I've found www.bestbookdeal.com is great as it lists masses of suppliers in price order; you should get the cheapest deal there.

And if you want something from China, I have bought from www.lovemandarin.com and they have provided a very timely, curteous and good-value service.

All the best, David

[johnmck]

Thank you all for your replies. David, how did you pay for your books from lovemandarin?

[Jun Heng Clinic]

johnmck wrote:-

Thank you all for your replies. David, how did you pay for your books from lovemandarin?

David writes:-

Hi John. I paid by Western Union money transfer (payout in USD). But they may have other payment options - I just don't remember. But if you email them they should get back to you quickly with answers.

David