buying used books on Amazon vs eBay

Take shipping into consideration when comparing prices as well.I don't think I've ever bought two used books from the same vendor from Amazon. Note that some vendors do Fulfillment By Amazon, which means that they ship the books to Amazon's warehouse. Those books will typically be Prime Eligible. Buying used books is like buying anything else from Amazon. You pay once just like you would ordinarily pay, and Amazon handles making the payments to all the vendors that your order requires buying from.I can't think of any reason why you would want to break up one order into many smaller orders. Amazon will happily do that for you.Amazon's catalog data ranges from excellent to total crap. If you really care about the book cover, then contact the vendor. The more popular the book is, the more likely it is that the information is accurate. The less popular the less likely.I'm pretty sure the seller has to ship to the address you specify to Amazon. Sellers can get in serious trouble if they deviate from the plan.

1. I buy a lot of books from Amazon Marketplace for this reason but don't count on a discount for combined shipping (see below). 2. The default is for shipping to not be combined, even for multiple books from the same vendor in the same order. Unless they've changed it since I last sold a book there, there's actually no mechanism on the vendor's end to adjust the shipping cost beyond issuing a refund post-purchase on the shipping: you'd have to contact the Marketplace seller and ask if they are willing to do this + there's no mechanism built into Amazon that I'm aware of that could enforce this kind of agreement between seller and customer should the vendor fail to make good on the promised refund. 3. The shopping cart looks and works just like buying a new book from Amazon. You can also purchase new and used stuff in the same order. The vendor only receives an email from Amazon when payment for one of their listed books clears: honestly, if I were a seller who got an email from a customer saying "Head's up, I'm about to buy these 5 books from you," there's really nothing in it for me to do anything until the sale actually happens. 4. Doesn't matter. 5. Amazon doesn't give its Marketplace vendors a way to display the actual copy of the book a vendor has for sale: book sellers enter their book's UPC code and Amazon displays book cover art from their database: what you see might not be what you get other than matching the UPC. If you want a specific edition/cover, you have to contact the seller pre-sale. 6. I don't know 7. I frequently purchase used books from Amazon, a good percentage of them have turned out to be former library books (pulled from circulation). This means they are ink stamped and stickered with the usual cruft that is on library books as well as encased in that plastic wrapper around the dust cover. That the book is a former library book is not always disclosed in the vendor's description. If I were being picky about the condition of a particular book, I would hesitate to buy used from Amazon.

1&2. Combined shipping is a no-go at Amazon (and it may not make financial sense to buy multiple books from the same seller, anyway). 3. No difference. 4. Just load up your cart & check out all at once. 5. Amazon is TERRIBLE if you're at all interested in specific editions/covers/etc, not least because sellers may engage in, ah, selective omission. (Besides ex-library books not being marked as such, many sellers also pass ARCs off as paperbacks.) 6. You should edit your account.

Put a LOT of weight on the rating of the reseller. I buy and sell a lot on Amazon. I would only buy from a seller with a rating less than 95% if i was desperate. If the ratings is over 95% you can almost invariably trust their description of the book. I have never bought a library book from a reputable seller unless it was described as such. If someone sold me a library book without informing me I would certainly give them a poor rating. I believe down ratings are more impactuful on Amz than Ebay, so any seller avoids them like the plague. (not sure about ebay, i think so...) Very likely a reseller will not give you a discount for multiple items. On Amazon, if a reseller sells an item for .99 cents they are making more on the shipping than they are on the item, for certain. (usps media, very cheap)

2. jamaro is correct, as far as I can tell. Basically, for every book sold, Amazon gives the seller a fixed amount ($4 for most books) to cover shipping. Shipping might actually cost less than $4, or it might cost more than $4, but the seller gets $4 per book, regardless. So, if you ordered multiple items from one seller, they could put everything in one box and save themselves the shipping costs, but I don't think there's any easy way for them to pass the savings on to you.

Amazon is great for used 'reader's copies', but not so much if you're looking for things like first editions. The listings will specify paperback or hard cover and the general condition, but that's about it.

2. Mostly likely, most sellers probably won't combine shipping BUT, as a data point, I sell a massive amount of books via Amazon (for the non-profit at which I work) and if I get a message from a buyer snagging say, three books, we're always happy to combine shipping and refund the difference. It's certainly worth asking but do it before you order maybe. 5. As for accurate descriptions, nthing the answer that said to buy from a reputable seller. Also, keep in mind that Amazon has an extremely streamlined and easy process for returns. If the seller says it's a first edition and it turns out it's not, you can return the book as being materially different from what was listed. If I goof a listing, we always refund return shipping as well because that one's on us. The return process on Amazon shouldn't take you more than a couple minutes to get started, unlike ebay. 6. ABSOLUTELY change your address. Amazon doesn't give a way for a seller within their shipping mechanism to change a buyer's address and in fact discourages sellers from doing so by taking away all protections if they ship to an address other than what's on file. If a buyer asks that of us, to ship to a different address, I always cancel the order, have them change their address, and then ask that they re-order. Personally, I'm not sure exactly what kind of books you'll be buying but Amazon is easier and better for buyers and your protections there are much greater and easier to put into action should something go wrong. We sell on ebay too but I'd always go with Amazon over ebay as a buyer, if I could.

Before you buy from Amazon take a look at abebooks.com. The last 2 or 3 times I built a shopping cart of used books at Amazon I checked Abebooks.com before ordering, and it was significantly cheaper. For some used textbooks it was 50% cheaper. And the stores on Abe do automatically combine for shipping. That said, stores that use Amazon for fulfillment will do the $25 for free shipping thing. You can filter search results by books that will qualify for the free shipping.

6. You can add as many addresses as you like to your account, and just pick which one you want used for each order. (If you want books shipped to different places, that might be the one reason to do multiple orders.) Every time you pick an address to ship to that you haven't used before, Amazon has you re-enter some of your sensitive info, to make sure it's still you. I've had no problems sending presents to my sister, or having my stuff sent to the in-laws while I'm out of town, while still leaving my primary address in my Amazon account.