Bookish FAQ

Please let me know if there is anything else you would like to know.

Why estimate SG$ prices?

For the international sites like the Amazon's and The Book Depositories (US and UK stores for both) the prices are converted into Singaporean dollars.

I use the European Central Bank to look up exchange rates. They seem like a reputable place to get data from (the last guys let me down as their US & UK to NZ rates were getting a bit out of line). Note: The ECB only updates their rates once per day if you require real time data then you're probably taking this too seriously.

You should be aware that exchange rates can be very volatile so the price you may get charged by Mr Visa/Ms Mastercard/Dr Amex (plus any fees) is very likely to be different from the price you see on this site (see, I even put it in bold to make sure you are aware) if you buy from one of those retailers.

Update: And to make the exchange rate closer to what appears on my Credit Card I've added an extra 5% transaction fee to the exchange rate.

Treat the estimated price as a guide. This site is not making the purchase - you are and it's your money. And please read carefully any terms and conditions.

Note that many of the NZ sites also have weasel words in their terms and conditions that prices are subject to change at the drop of a hat.

How do you estimate postage?

I read the site policy. Most sites have some sort of policy stating what they charge. And it's easy to work out if the price is over/under any threshold and display the correct postage.

What's not easy is those sites that say "it depends". How are customers supposed to know what it's going to cost without the purchase taking 5 emails and a carrier pigeon?

Hint to retailers: make it easy for your customers. Free is good. $5 for the first book, others free is clear. As is $5 delivery on orders under $50 and free for orders over $50. If I've got a postage calculation wrong, please let me know. I'd like to get it right.

I don't want my site listed! How do I get off here?

If you are one of the bookshops this site checks and you don't want to be listed then please let us know. I do not aim to antagonise booksellers. But I do aim to provide a service to this sites users so I am searching as many sites as I can.

Bookish tries very hard to make sure that the process of searching booksellers sites is as quick and painless as possible. It does not download images or CSS or javascript files so the amount of traffic for your site should be minimal.

And we only search when a human is looking at Bookish. When I detect a search engine spider, i.e. the GoogleBot, I d not do any price lookups which means I do not go to any retailer sites.

To further lessen the impact on your site I save the result so I only need to search your site for that book once in nay 24 hours period. If multiple people search for the same book on the same day the first person has to wait while I do a lookup - the rest see the saved results. If we are having an impact on your site then then please let us know.

I want my site listed! How do I get in?

Please go to the suggest a book retailer page and let me know. I'd like to include as many sites as I can. I think it's good advertising for you - I'd never heard of many of the sites I list until I started this project.