This post was triggered by a couple of things. First, I was reading a nice guide the other day about buying stuff on Amazon and then getting them shipped to Singapore. Second, after I started serving Amazon ads, a friend asked whether it isn’t a bit pointless since most of the people who would pay a visit to The Waste Land would be from a non-Amazon country. Of course I would like to counter that by saying The Waste Land has a global audience! But who am I fooling?! So I suppose it is better instead to espouse the benefits of buying from Amazon even in a non-Amazon country!
Jokes apart, I am a serious Amazon fan and I have been buying CDs/DVDs/books from them for at least the last couple of years. And I truly believe there are definite advantages some times. Let me plagiarize from the guide I spoke of above, adding my own insights, to explain to you what they are!
First and foremost for me is their sheer variety! I have often bought titles that I would never find anywhere else or at the very least would find it pretty darn tough to source them. E.g., tapes of T.S. Eliot reciting his own poems, Da Ali G Show – Da Compleet Seereez , Jaco Pastorius Live DVD, a Jack Bruce solo album, Letters Of A Javanese Princess – Kartini’s letters, The Trio of Doom Live (McLaughlin and Pastorius playing together!), Lost interview tapes of Jim Morrison, complete poetry and prose of Chairil Anwar – the list is eclectic and endless!
Second is their customer service. Once I had ordered a few audio CDs and after waiting for double the average shipping time, when my shipment still did not arrive, I wrote to them. They immediately sent me the whole set again, no questions asked! (I ended up receiving two sets though!) They also have excellent return and refund policies in case you are not satisfied with your purchase.
Finally, believe it or not, it actually works out cheaper sometimes to buy on Amazon, even after taking into account the shipping charges. If you are buying a few titles together, you can get even lower shipping costs per item. The logic is simple, you walk into the CD/DVD/book store in your city – half the Western titles there are imported anyways plus the store puts in their operating costs and hefty margins. So do the math!
And of course you can do it all from the comfort of your home or office! So check out my Amazon recommendations or the Amazon ads and start buying through clicks on this page! Come on people, the charity “Keeping Suman drunk” needs your support!