This is where you can give your opinions on this type of post
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/38301
and how this is best handled in the future, rather than in the post itself.
Warning - the opinions are to be kept on topic. Attack the argument but not the person. Those off topic (eg attacks on person will be deleted and if too personal or sustained could earn a temporary ban)
MOD edit - to clarify where the mods are currently on this one, check this post out.
just a point to also consider.As outlined by others and something I wasn't aware of beforehand, is the shipping cost differential.
BD will pay the same cost to ship to Australia with all books.
Now the argument not to do with the hack is that it costs more to ship to Australia than to the UK hence there needs to be a higher price. And that make sense.
But BD says if someone in the UK wants to send a book to an Australian, they also get a cheaper price. Now if I was in the UK and wanted to send you a book because I like you, then BD could say Yes but you need to pay the Australian Price.
But this means they should not say its free shipping. It should say the price quoted "includes" shipping. But maybe they dont want anyone to know what the true cost of shipping is.
Simply put they acknowledge you can buy cheaper if ordered through the UK. If someone has Ethical issues (and I am not making a judgment on this) then as long as they have a friend in the UK, they could ask them to order on their behalf, so net effect is the same.
If someone has Ethical issues (and I am not making a judgment on this) then as long as they have a friend in the UK, they could ask them to order on their behalf, so net effect is the same.
I suspect the 'friends buying books for Australians' numbers would be so small that it would not be worth creating a special process for those sales…. Their system clearly bases pricing around ordering address, not destination address.
I also think the difference between the two is around honesty…..if I manipulate a process to make it look as though I'm ordering from a different country….then, (justify however you like),….it is not the truth. It then becomes an issue about lying….and people's own conscience I guess.
The question for ozbargain is whether it is comfortable in condoning/promoting dishonest practices, and what effect, if any, it would have on the site's reputation.
as long as they have a friend in the UK, they could ask them to order on their behalf, so net effect is the same.
Huh! That is really strange, and I can see why people would say that is a good justification for using the hack. Over and above the ethics of the situation, which people hold very varied positions on, I just hope that this doesn't backfire and cause BD to do something draconian (like refusing to ship to Australia, for example). While I don't think they're justified in charging more for books going to Aust just because there's less competition here, it would suck if Australians ended up paying more from their books out of the deal. Then again, perhaps it would be better for BD to keep quiet about the hack-ers and avoid drawing attention to the different prices.
no to hacking, it opens a can of worms and where does it stop
edit to my previous post- this sort of thing will invariably always be around so agrees with others to keep it off the front page but still make it available in a members only section and then that way the members that contribute to OB can make their own call if they want to take up the offer or not, a sort of split it down the middle outcome because also you won't be able to please everyone all the time.
It's fine ethically and legally. There is no deception as you are giving them your mailing address. The effect of the so-called "hack" can be duplicated by having my cousin in England place the order for me and enter my mailing address. Or I could wait til I visit him and place the order in England myself. If this involved real deception or achieved a discount that was impossible to replicate without the so-called "hack" - then it would be a different story.
Being a late comer, I only read the first page and skipped the rest cos it was just too long, so I do apologize if there is anything repeated.
My Opinion:
Is 'HACK' as mentioned in the previous 3 pages a hack? To me it is more like a skill or an ability. Being an ex-hacker of flash games (Using Cheat Engine and hex numbers) I believe that this is not a hack. I think hack is the action where you gain unauthorized access to data or deliberately change values. If you call selecting winning Slurpees as 'HACKING', then how is it different from selecting the better looking PS3 Blue Ray disks with no scratches? I can't see how you can hack a Slurpees or chocolate bar. If you somehow obtained a code generator for winning chocolate bar label numbers, yes, I would call that hacking. All the posts that are label HACK, I don't see any hacking involved.
I consider such skill as a way of finding a bargain and also reflecting the poorly designs by the manufacturers. If the codes weren't easily detectable, would members of Ozbargain post posts and have this massive discussion today? It is like a cause effect. The package is the cause and we are the affect - taking advantage of a bargain.
So I think the word 'HACK' is not suitable as it gives a biased meaning. Secondly, it is not our fault for taking advantage of a bargain. Lastly I think such posts should be permitted on Ozbargain.
what the people of OzB are arguing about is mainly about this one
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/38328
Yes, I would regard that as a hack cos you are changing the cookies and plugins to trick the book server seeing you as a UK computer.
Well. I think the hack method is not working anymore.
I say yes to hacks - you're merely making the most of what's there. Just like when people are giving out free drinks at Westfield, and someone goes for a few dips. Sure, you may shake your head at them for being a cheapskate, but they've done nothing wrong.
Also with hacks, I believe it's the company's fault for letting us have them in the first place. Let them learn from their mistakes :D
Does this Hack work anymore?
Amazon isn't in the business of losing money. Probably not.
This is a really interesting situation. Personally, when I read "free shipping worldwide", I do assume that it's the same price for everyone, and I do feel a bit wronged to discover that shipping costs are being incorporated into the book prices <i>at a differential rate</i>. Thinking about it, though, if they did not do this, it would probably make them uncompetitive in the US and UK markets. However, it's particularly galling to see that the differences between US/UK and Australian prices are in many cases much more than the postage cost would justify. To me this does seem more like exploiting the high cost of books in Australia - if they can make a profit selling a book at x in the UK and USA, surely they can make a profit selling a book at x + a few dollars shipping to Australia, bearing in mind that shipping would end up being pretty low considering their volume of business.
I suspect there's some complex marketing psychology going on here, and that people often don't make strictly rational decisions. For instance, buying books from Amazon, because there's a per order charge as well as a per item charge, it makes sense to make a bigger order. However, I've never bought anything from Amazon, because when I sit down to work it out, I find the shipping costs prohibitive. With bookdepository, there's no incentive at all to buy more than one item at a time, but I usually do anyway, because I see more books I want while browsing their site, and buy other books I'd been thinking of getting "while I'm thinking of it". This doesn't really make sense, from a financial point of view, but I suspect I'm not the only one who buys more books when not thinking about the shipping charges.
If bookdepository are charging more for books shipped to Australia, I would like the opportunity to get a discount for buying a larger order of books at the same time, but of course their business model doesn't support this, because shipping is "free" ie. included. I am wary of using the hack to buy books at US/UK prices and then get them shipped here, because whatever I think about how they come up with their prices, a sale occurs when an item is offered at a price and accepted at that price, and I do feel the hack is a distortion of this process. However, I think I could still save money on some books by using the hack to ship to a mail consolidation business (e.g. http://www.shipito.com) at the lower US prices. To me, this would be respectful of the actual costs of BD shipping the book, while thumbing my nose at the extra markup they can put on because of the high costs of books in Australia.
Edited to add: my thought about using a 3rd party shipper was based on looking at a couple of high-cost textbooks that I've had my eye on, but upon a 2nd look, I'm not sure if the price difference would make in economical to do this. Can it be just my imagination that the price difference has decreased in the last week???