We’ll start with an easy one that’s featured prominently on the sites: Bonnie Garmus’ celebrated novel Lessons in Chemistry. The paperback has an RRP of $23.

Book Depository: $19.41
Amazon: $12
Booktopia: $13.50

This book is emblematic of a few recurring factors we’ll see. Book Depository isn’t able to offer as steep a discount as its rivals because the shipping is in the price, but it still comes out ahead of Booktopia when you take the extra $10 shipping costs into account.

Also, if you’re just buying this one book, an Amazon Prime subscriber gets an excellent deal while a non-subscriber still gets an ok one. And finally, all three adjust prices constantly in response to what other sellers are doing, which could mean fewer savings overall once Book Depository is out of the picture.

How about a more expensive book, like the hardcover of Prince Harry’s recent biography? It has an RRP of $60.

Book Depository: $41.78
Amazon: $35
Booktopia: $36.95

Again Amazon is cheaper overall, and likely delivers faster, making it an obvious choice for Australian buyers.

It’s clear that Amazon specifically targets new biographies, releases by big-name authors or books that are otherwise in the public mind because you’ll usually find them at almost half the RRP while similar books from a few years ago are less discounted.

To get a bit more niche, let’s look at the English language version of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki manga collection. The hardcover has an RRP of $41.

Book Depository: $46.85
Amazon: $24.50
Booktopia: $30.80

In this case, Book Depository is actually over the RRP, probably to account for shipping the heavy tome to far-off lands. Amazon’s size and its delivery infrastructure let it be very competitive with these kinds of products, and I’ve often seen art books, coffee table books and other heavy hardcovers for $30 less than at Book Depository. Booktopia is generally close to Amazon, not counting the $10 shipping.

It’s when we get to classics that we see a bit of an advantage in Book Depository’s favour. The Sirens of Titan, Wings of the Dove and Dracula are all a bit cheaper than Amazon, so if you were getting a bulk of paperbacks and didn’t mind waiting a few weeks you could save a bit. Of course Amazon will push e-book versions of classic titles, which often cost just cents or are free.

It’s impossible to say which site has the better range, especially since it will depend largely on your tastes. I searched each site for the last 10 books I’ve read, which are mostly literary fiction, and found Amazon and Book Depository had all of them. Booktopia was missing two. Amazon was the cheapest in seven of the searches.

All things considered, the landscape is very different in Australia now than it was five years ago, specifically because Amazon has made its service very hard to beat. If you’re buying more than one book, you’re likely paying more than $39, meaning shipping for the whole order is free. Even if you’re buying books from overseas, orders fulfilled by foreign arms of Amazon get free shipping if they’re over $49. If you don’t meet that threshold, the $4 shipping generally still makes for a better deal than Booktopia.

The main thing we’re losing with Book Depository is the competition, even if it is also owned by Amazon. In the short term, that will mean no alternative in those few cases where the UK-based service worked out cheaper. In the longer term, it may mean Amazon has less incentive to keep its prices and shipping low to appear better in comparison.

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