A Real On-Line Book Shop (Barnes & Noble)

Member Name: TheChocolateLady

Product:	Barnes & Noble
Date:	06/07/08 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More specified products, good prices, lovely site design, accepts PayPal

Disadvantages: Doesn't have great suggestions, is an American site

When I recently joined a site that pays me through PayPal, I immediately had to find out where I was going to use my earnings, since Amazon wasn't an option. When I found out that Barnes & Noble took PayPal I knew I had my answer. Yes, there are other sites - some cheaper - that also take PayPal, but one doesn't always want to use smaller sites since their size sometimes means less good service or products. That's why I'm recommending Barnes & Noble (from hereon in B&N, and you can find it at either www.bn.com or www.barnesandnoble.com) for those of us here who want to use their earnings to buy things like books, CDs and DVDs.

First of all, the site itself is very easy on the eye, with cool tan, gray and dark green colours that don't assault your senses, and are very welcoming. The graphics aren't all that simple and yet the site seems pretty fast to load, so when you're clicking around the site, you won't have much waiting time. The only heavy page is their homepage with their moving "picks of the week" and even that seems to come up nicely. The overall design seems a bit classier than Amazon's today, and has retained the nice large category tabs at the top. In addition, their search engine has the drop-down list of categories to the right of the place you type your search into, which I find better than having it to the left where Amazon has theirs these days. They also have some interesting video advertisements which I don't often look at but they do make the whole site look very professional. In all, I really prefer the design of this site compared to Amazon as it seems more muted and comfortable - like an old friend - versus the busy and loud design of Amazon. The only design thing I dislike about B&N is that the site likes to log you off after you've left the page open for a while and you have to log on again if you come back to it. That almost never happens with Amazon, except when you are ready to make an order and they ask you to sign in to the secure part. This does actually mean that B&N is probably more secure than Amazon, but slightly more annoying.

Of course, Amazon does have a much larger selection of goods than B&N does, since they expanded to such things as clothing and shoes in addition to their original books, music and movies. B&N specializes in mostly books, music and movies, with them only branching out into toys & games, and home & gift sections, both of which seem to stay mostly in the book/stationary store categories. But I'm not sure that this puts B&N at a disadvantage, since a larger range of inventory usually also means less of a selection within each category. So while Amazon has a larger variety of things to buy, B&N can give you far more specific items to choose from. For instance, trying to find classical music on Amazon is hit or miss, and while they do have a classical section, they seem to have more of the "pop" classical music than the serious stuff. When I went to look on B&N for a particular opera that took me pages of searching for on Amazon, B&N gave me the exact version I had wanted, listed first on the page! Moreover, when I want to find interesting books on B&N, I can actually narrow my browsing by the era and/or the place in the world the story takes place in. That means I won't be given books about ancient Rome when I'm looking for a story that takes place in modern Italy.

I have to mention, however, that the one thing that Amazon has that I wish B&N could give me, is more in the way of suggestions. Amazon's site seems to take everything I've clicked on or purchased or placed in my wish list, and assume that I might also like other items. I've found untold treasures through Amazon's suggestions, and I also like how I can remove certain things from my browsing history to help make their suggestions better for me. Unfortunately, B&N doesn't have that option, and the only thing they do give you is a list of titles that other people have purchased along with the item you are looking at. But one thing that Amazon doesn't have that B&N does, is with their books, you can get lists of only the type of format you want - paperback, hardcover, audio books, large print, etc.

While both Amazon and B&N have certain conditions where shipping is free, B&N is an American site, and will charge you for shipping to the UK. However, I have relatives in the US and my organization has a New York office, so I don't need to worry about international shipping. In addition, I can't say that B&N actually has lower prices on all the same items you can find on Amazon. For the most part, however, I'd say that their prices are approximately the same, taking all things into account. Of course, if you're going to buy lots and lots from B&N, you might find it worthwhile to pay their US$25 yearly membership and get discounts on most items, but I'm not sure that actually makes them cheaper in the long-run than Amazon. As I mentioned before, one big advantage that B&N has over Amazon is that they accept PayPal and Amazon does not. But both are very secure sites no matter how you choose to pay for your purchases, and I've never had any problem with any of my payment information getting to unwanted sources from either site. They're also both equal regarding their reliability for shipments arriving in a timely fashion and their customer service.

All told, I'm very pleased with B&N. I like their selection of books, CDs and DVDs, their prices are mostly competitive, I can find more specialty items there than at Amazon, and the look of their site is more attractive and user friendly for me than Amazon's. It doesn't bother me that B&N doesn't have tons of categories like electronics or clothing, since I've almost never bought those things from Amazon, and I'm hardly going to start doing that now. While both Amazon and B&N are equally fast to load, both are secure and work to make sure their customers are happy, B&N could take a page from Amazon's book regarding not logging me off and giving me more suggestions. On the other hand, B&N excels when giving me creative options of narrowing down the general lists of items to more specific ones, and eliminating formats I'm not interested in purchasing. So while I won't stop visiting Amazon, I'm glad I have an equally good place to spend my PayPal money, and will give B&N four out of five stars and recommend it to all my readers here.

Thanks for reading!

Davida Chazan (c) June, 2008 for Ciao.com, updated July 2008 for DooYoo.

Summary: The on-line version of the famous real life book shop