Searching for a Better Book Search: Reviewing the Top Websites and Tools for Finding the Lowest-Priced Used and New Books Online

Searching for a Better Book Search: Reviewing the Top Websites and Tools for Finding the Lowest-Priced Used and New Books Online

As a lifelong book lover and recovering literature major on a limited budget, I need to be careful to keep my costs down while feeding my reading habit. Fortunately, it's never been easier to buy books cheaply online, though surprisingly, I had to search for a while to find the great book price comparer I was looking for.

What makes this surprising is that there seem to be plenty of good comparison shopping sites out there for plane tickets, designer shoes, and electronics. The best of these are easy on the eye, simple to navigate, and efficiently direct you to what you're looking for at a price that suits your budget. For book price comparing, though, such got-it-all price-search options are in short supply. After putting the leading book-buying websites through their paces (see chart below), I did, however, find a website and add-on that does a great job, makes the world a little better by donating to nonprofits or guarantees that if they don't find you the lowest priced online they will pay for your book!

I first started searching for cheap books online through general comparison shopping sites like Google Shopping (www.google.com/prdhp)or MySimon.com which the bargain shopper can use to buy anything from waffle irons to waffle-weave shirts. However, that becomes a problem when searching for books it's nearly impossible to find exactly what you're looking for. Sorting through pages of discounted woks is not worth the trouble if what you're really looking for is one copy of 365 Ways to Wok.

Narrowing my focus to comparative shopping websites that focus exclusively on books, I was surprised that I didn't find an abundance of great choices. There is no shortage of sites that get kinda, sorta, get the job done, a few that are very reliable, but as noted, only one that stood out for giving me exactly what I was looking for.

Many book comparison websites are slow, inaccurate, or both, and sometimes even manipulative. Campusbooks.com, for instance, which is otherwise a fine site, has a "featured sellers" section at top that push the consumer to buy books at a higher rate than available at other sites and sometimes, the price displayed in the "featured seller" section isn't even the cheapest price available on that website. Bestbookdeal.com, featuring graphics straight out of 1998, didn't seem to think that Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger, existed at all I had to conduct a search using the book's ISBN number, and even then the site directed me to a page at the "cheapest" bookstore's website that no longer existed.

AddAll, the top Google search result for book comparison sites, is simply outdated. The site's graphics have that Dark-Ages-of-the-Internet look that gives me the willies and the search engine itself creeps along like it's horse-driven. Not only that, but the search function has big holes I searched for an academic title with three co-authors, and AddAll listed the book as though it was written by one single person. The price comparison itself was questionable in its accuracy for at least one of the test searches I conducted, I was able to find a cheaper price by just searching directly on Amazon.

Many of these sites were definitely mechanically challenged. BigWords.com, aside from looking frenetic (one assumes it's an attempt to be hip for the college crowd), also required me to return to the homepage every time I wanted to conduct a new search or tweak my initial search. BookFinder.com required me to pore over search results to find the correct edition of the novel I was looking forand worse is v-v-v-e-r-y s-l-o-w. AllBookstores.com required several extra clicks to get me to the actual price comparison, and the comparison page itself is a sort of baroque spreadsheet that is difficult to make sense of at a glance. BooksPrice.com struggled to find me the academic work I was searching for it was buried somewhere in the search results, despite being the only book with its title.

So what was my favorite? The Bargain Book Mole gets my best-of-the-best vote for several reasons. First, their search results are clear, accurate, and delivered fast. You can see everything you need in one place: price, shipping, total cost, and the details of the book's condition. Second, the site is pleasant to look at (though admittedly ever since reading Wind in the Willows as a kid, I've always been partial to moles). Third, and best of all, I like their browser add-ons which allow you to search for the lowest prices on the fly; that is, no matter what website you're on, when you're looking at details about a book, a small tab descends. Click it, and-- without leaving the website you were on--you get a quick search for the lowest prices online, including all the details you want such as condition details, shipping costs etc. Last, they have an extra kicker no other price-comparison site does: if you search using www.BargainBookMole.org, they donate 5% of the affiliate fees they receive (this comes from the bookselling websites, it never costs us/the-user anything) to nonprofits such as the Authors Guild, scholarship funds, and organizations promoting literacy. Or if you buy through www.BargainBookMole.com, they promise that they'll find you the lowest price online or the book is on them.

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