frugal underground

I just discovered AddALL and am hooked. AddALL is a book price comparision site that’s getting me better results than all of the methods I’ve been using, and their sister sites (A Magazine Area, A Music Area, and A Movie Area) will help you in the same way when you’re looking for magazines, CDs, and videos.

What makes these sites so great? Their core functionality. I frequently use Froogle, which does a decent job, but Froogle doesn’t give me the final price… I have to visit the merchants’ sites and figure out shipping costs for myself. Sometimes these merchants make them hard to find. The price that Froogle gives me is usually not the price I’ll end up paying.

Not so with AddALL and friends. When I search, I tell them that I’m in the Continental U.S.A. (for shipping costs) and Idaho (for tax rate). All of my search results include shipping and taxes, so I can tell upfront that I will be paying exactly $22.98 for “Art Of Project Management” to be delivered to my doorstep (significantly cheaper—and easier!—than my previous plan to buy a discounted B&N gift card and purchase the book with my sister’s prefered B&N card).

I like that AddALL is book-specific (and the other sites are medium-specific). That means that the merchants are pre-selected with the intention of pointing people to books, and I don’t have to worry about all of the off-topic results I get with Froogle or eBay.

I am also appreciative that AddALL actually has a business model: when you purchase books through their site, they get a commission. I’m fine with that, and consider it a good thing. Too many “cool” sites started as hobbies or good ideas end up costing the creator too much to maintain and go away. The fact that there is a reasonable expectation of income for them (at no cost to me) gives me hope for the longevity of this excellent service. I’ll gladly buy though them!

Bottom line: this service is a fast, streamlined way to find the best final price for that book you’re pining for.

Popularity: 16% [?]

This entry was posted on Friday, April 7th, 2006 at 9:47 am and is tagged saving money, shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.