Business ProfileforStrand Book Store

Don't order books online from this bookseller.While I am sure that in-person this bookstore is great, in my experience online sales leave a great deal to be desired. They sell their books through third party vendors, which can misrepresent the shipping and final cost of the book. That's what happened to me. A day after ordering the book, I was told that the shipping price was TRIPLE the cost I was quoted.When I emailed to make this right (they don't accept incoming calls), the person I spoke with was completely disinterested in finding a solution and blamed me not seeing their side of the issue, that third party vendors "force" them to misrepresent their shipping costs.In the end, Strand knew that the book I purchased was oversided, both large and heavy, and refused to work with me or their third party vendor to come to an agreement to get the book shipped. I was the only one offering a solution other than pay three times what you were quoted, or cancel the order.Very disappointed in such poor service from an illustrious and long-lived establishment.

The third party vendor in question here is ************. The format on that website requires its sellers to list a flat-rate shipping price regardless of item weight, but it also includes a function where the seller can request additional funds to accommodate for increased shipping charges for a heavy or oversized item, to purchase insurance for the item, and to add sales tax and/or specialized tracking costs. This increased fee is then sent to the customer for them to either accept or reject. Once the request for additional funds is made, ******** does not allow the seller to edit it: it is a "Yes or No" option only. All of this is clearly stated on their website (***************************************************************************************). Regardless, this process was also clearly explained to the customer by two ********************** representatives, and they provided the AbeBooks links above to help provide visibility into the process. The price we quoted was now based on the weight, as well as including insurance, to ensure that the $105 item reached the customer safe and sound. This shipping fee requested was at our cost; we do not make any profit off of the shipping rate. We did our best to explain all of the above to the customer, initially in email. We then phoned the customer in an effort to better explain the method of how AbeBooks works, and how we came to the shipping costs that we did. The customer was adamantly unhappy with the situation; we suggested they reject the offer and we would simply cancel the order. The customer eventually accepted the requested shipping fee, but also emailed separately saying that they wanted only to pay that initial flat rate shipping fee, which now was not possible. We cancelled the order