I was looking up the prices of the Desk Ref book by Thomas Glover on Amazon ... and saw unbelivable price range from $11 to $400 ++

Are these guys serious ???

I have noticed this crazy range of prices a few times in Amazon and other sites. And being illetrate in e-shopping , I really didn't know what is going on !!!

Grossly over-pricing and object on Amazon or eBay is a common way of laundering money.

Nobody else buys the "book" at $400, but the guy with $40,000 in drug money "buys" a bunch of copies from the "seller" money changes hands, invoices are created, and the money gets cleaned up.

I won't even go into the way a similar technique is used on eBay for human trafficking in child sex slaves. Suffice it to say when I learned about it I nearly vomited.

It's damn near impossible to eradicate.

Thanks Martin, money laundering is the only thing that can explain what is happening.

Izzy, we are not talking $10 or $20 up or down.
Imagine the same book , someone selling it for $ 11 and the next guy selling it for $400 !!!! And there are other guys selling it new for $30

OK, next question on Amazon. I have never bought anything on-line. Last time I bought anything from the U.S., I had a U.S. bank account and wrote checks. That was ages ago, and it worked fine. Now, I have to get me a credit card, a paypal account , and try my luck @ e-shopping. My main interest is in prep-books and a few things like esbit stoves.

So, let's suppose I want to buy this DESK REF book. How do I know which seller is best ( most trustworthy ) ? And are there any tips and tricks I should learn from you guys e-shopping experts ??

First and most importantly, use a payment method that you have confidence in. I use my American Express card for almost all my online purchases, because they have a 20+ year track record with me of outstanding customer service. If something goes wrong and I call them, I can get my money back.

Next is to buy from a trusted seller. Amazon has consistently treated me right. I recently bought _Desk Ref_ in hardcover from them.

If what you want isn't from a seller that you trust, see if you can't buy it through Amazon Marketplace or eBay. Both companies, in my experience, will support buyers when sellers don't deliver.

When things do go wrong, be polite but also be persistent. I like to give the seller five working days to get back to me before I give up and file a dispute. A lot of times, less scrupulous sellers will offer you a partial refund rather than a full one for a broken or missing order. Stand your ground and insist on having the problem solved to your satisfaction. Just as with brick-and-mortar companies, some will treat you right and some won't.

Well.....

It just so happens that I've been working in the eCommerce (online shopping) business since 1994. (Gah! That's 18 years! And 20 since I started working full-time in online media! Whoa).

Anyway...

Shopping online is really no big deal anymore, it's safe and convenient, and the prices are very good.

In general, if you shop at a "name brand" store like Amazon.com or Buy.com, you're well protected in terms of customer satisfaction. Or, you should shop at one of the ETS advertisers, all of whom are reputable companies.

All good shopping sites have one or both of product ratings and, if they are just brokering a sale (like eBay), a seller rating. The more reviews or ratings, the better. Not only do bad sellers never get a high number of reviews, bad sellers are quickly eradicated from the reputable marketplaces. In short, pick an online store that is well organized, does not have typos all over it, and do a tiny bit of research with Google or Bing with search terms like "[Company name] return policy" to see what people think.

Here are some of the places where I shop online frequently:

www.amazon.com (sells directly and also is a "virtual mall" for other sellers. My main shopping point)
www.propertyroom.com (sells confiscated items and abandoned items. Auctions)
www.campmor.com (camping stuff etc.)
www.ebay.com (the world's largest marketplace, or so they say)
www.monoprice.com (for realyl cheap prices on electronic accessories)
www.rei.com (camping and outdoor gear)
www.sportsmansguide.com (wal-mart grade outdoor gear and oddball military surplus, occasionally ammo)

Now, as far as payments go, the emotions around PayPal make religious wars seem like a playground spat. I know that Doug Ritter and the ETS foundation won't use PayPal at all, ever and I know that you can't sell on eBay without a PayPal account. Here's my take on it.
I think that PayPal has been the object of every attempted fraudster, every possible hack, every money laundering scheme and every instance of what could happen does happen, and in the end, I think that it's the best way to pay online because of all of this.

A word about credit cards/debit cards:

If you don't like paypal, shop with a CREDIT CARD only online. Not a debit card. Suffice it to say that in the USA, your liability for fraud is $50 maximum, and many (perhaps most) card issuers absorb this without cost to you. Your consumer protections are good with credit cards, not so good with debit cards.
If you MUST use a debit card, link it to a bank account that you use only for online shopping. Debit cards can have "holds" that can be problematic if you use them - money can be locked up for a period of time until all the merchants finish processing their transactions. This is less of a problem with credit cards.


A few things to watch out for in general:
- Outrageous shipping and "handling" charges. Never pay more than 5% of the total price for shipping and handling.
- Returns policy. If they make you jump through hoops and pay a fortune for returns, stay away. Don't shop anywhere with a "no returns" policy.

Finally, don't be afraid to shop across national borders. I buy stuff from Hong Kong, and while shipping takes a while, it's well worth it in terms of cost savings.

There are other book purchasing options besides Amazon. I've bought from used book networks like Alibris and Abebooks. You see some mispricings there, too, but less frequently than on Amazon, which may attract more unscrupulous vendors because it's the biggest marketplace.

I think this is the case, most of the time, especially with older, perhaps out-of-print, books.

In some cases, with out-of-print stuff, you may have a small but steady demand for them, and that allows sellers to charge an arm-and-a-leg for them. I've personally noticed it with certain financial and health-related books that I had been recommended or seen recommended online. Fans of some online person all try to buy the same book, so demand is high enough to charge a high price.

Depending on how popular the 2012 Doomsday phenenom pans out this year, certain out-of-print or hard-to-find prep-related books could get very expensive this year.

Yet another reason might be that the sellers are not quite selling the same thing as each other. I just received a book this week that wasn't what I expected. This seller's price was only a fraction of everyone else's price for this out-of-print book. Normally, that's a bit of a red flag for a merchant I have never used before, but the total amount was minimal so I took the chance. Shipping was prompt, but instead of a normal paperback book, it was actually a bound set of copied pages. Similar to something I often had to buy in college for classes, but still, very well done and all the pages are clear and just as legible as the regular book. In this case, I'm not complaining because I save so much money, but it would've been a problem if I were buying a book as, say, a gift. I buy a lot of books online and this is the first time I have experienced this, though, so don't be put off my by story.

I was stiffed by a small, independent bookseller that I was using for the first time, but this happened only once to me. Never received my book. In that case, I had paid by PayPal. I complained to PayPal, explained what I had done to try and resolve the issue, and after PayPal investigated, PayPal refunded me the whole amount.

Besides PayPal, for peace of mind, using a virtual credit card number is a wonderful tool for online shopping. Different products may work slightly differently, but basically you log into your credit card company's website, generate a unique credit card number, and then use that to purchase something online. Typically, the number has a short expiration date and generally can only be used by one merchant. So even if a hacker stole the number at some point, they can't use it because the number is expired or because they are not the same entity as the merchant for who first used it. The hacker's attempt to use it is rejected by the credit card company. I do all of my online shopping and pay certain bills using virtual credit card numbers and I have never seen a fraudulent charge on any of my credit cards (currently use Citibank and Discover's virtual credit card services).

Here's a short article on them if you want to learn more.

Oh, by the way, if you're going to start buying things online, you might consider setting up a separate email address just for online purchases. Sometimes, you can get a lot of new solicitations or annoying spam messages after purchasing from certain merchants. You can just use a free web email account from any number of companies, like Yahoo or Hotmail.

And don't use the same password for every merchant! Set up a unique one for each website and keep track of them.

My parents were small business owners, so I certainly try to support local businesses, but online shopping really opens up a lot of possibilities that just aren't possible with brick-and-mortar stores. I'd say 99.9% of my online transactions have been just fine. Have fun!

I also am new to on-line shopping. Mostly Amazon (no affiliation etc).

I use a credit card that allows virtual numbers, and you can set both a dollar limit and time limit. I highly recommend credit cards that allow this. As of yet, I have not had any problems.

I think the thing that converted me to on-line shopping was not so much generally lower prices (they are) but the ability to find what I actually need. A few months ago I was doing a (what I thought) was a simple home repair. I needed a small plastic part. No problem, I head off to the Home Depot. Nope. Now, several years ago, the staff there would have been able to tell me where to get it (a la Santa in Miracle on 34th Street). No more---they were dumbfounded. 3 hours of checking all other local stores had the same result. I went home, logged on and found the part I needed in less than a minute and had it in my hands 2 days later. Finding the repair part saved having to make a major replacement--probably saving at least 100 or more dollars.

I too like to support local businesses, even chains, as they employ local folks. But I still need to be able to find and buy what I want and need. I can't afford to replace things that only need a new $2.00 plastic part.

Amazon has a seller "rating" system if you're buying from the seller through Amazon instead of directly from Amazon. I've found most decent sellers will be able to maintain a 97% or above rating.

Arney recommended a separate email acount for online transactions to avoid spam. Multiple emails are a eccellent idea. I use my primary email acount for online transactions, but maintain a second email account with the minimum information for forums and general public consumption (If I don't know you, you get this account). The junk mail filters on my primary catches most of the spam. The really bad "Canadian Viagra" and P**n emails are down to about once a week. The public account gets innundated on a weekly basis.

EDIT: bws48 brought up a major point. The smaller shops use to order in a specialty item if you requested it, but the vast majority of local B&M stores are large chains. Online is really the only choice for anything not mainstream.