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Amazon.com Makes Book Buying Easy

© Maureen Fleury

Many people are hesitant in buying a book online because they feel that they do not have the opportunity to look at the book like they can at a bookstore. In addition, the first visit to Amazon.com page can be overwhelming.

I hope I can help demystify an Amazon.com page by pointing out some key features you will find on any page on the site. Once you get the hang of it, you will find that navigating around Amazon.com is quite simple.

There are various ways to search for a product at Amazon.com. Every page has a search box so you don't have to go to the home page each time. You can search within a specific product line or search the entire site. If you want to look at exercise books, then you would select books as your product and exercise as your keyword.

The results page has a list of every book that fits the keyword. Each book description has the price, author, title and a picture (unless the graphic is not available) and the availability. To find out more about the book, you just have to click on the picture.

Some pictures have an additional graphic that says Look Inside.

There is an old saying you can't judge a book by its cover so Amazon.com has a wonderful feature that allows you to look inside a book.

Many books have a special graphic Look Inside attached to the picture of the book. Below the picture is a link that takes you to another page where you can view several pages from the book.

Try it and see:

In this example, you can view 56 pages. You have to agree that these samples will give you a good idea of what is inside. When you go to a bookstore, it is natural to browse through a book before you buy. When you are buying online, you now have this same convenience at Amazon.com

Whenever you select a book, Amazon.com always has a suggestion for a related book so you can buy the two of them for one price. This is their Better Together offer. The best thing about this is the deal you get. There is even a deeper discount when you buy the two books.

In the above example, the book PC for Dummies sells for $17.49 with a list price of $24.99 and the other book Upgrading and Fixing Your PC for Dummies sells for $15.39 with a list price of $21.99. Both of these books retain their discount, whereas some vendors will charge you full price for one of the books. This can save you money and both items count towards your shipping discount.