Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 12, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The safest method of obtaining what you are looking for at the most favourable terms is, of course, to search all shops and marketplaces yourself and remember the interim results, since this procedure allows the special search functions of the individual providers to be exploited. With around 30 marketplaces for books alone, an uncounted number of shops and around 140 Internet auction houses in Germany alone, however, this method can only be used by book lovers with a great deal of time and even more patience.
Use Product Search Engines for Books
Product search engines take the laborious search work away from those interested in books. They search many marketplaces and shops at the same time, compile the results and sort them by offer price. Shipping costs are not always taken into account. The elaborate search is actually only really worthwhile for used books; new books are subject to statutory fixed book prices in Germany. At least within 18 months of publication, no dealer in Germany may sell a book to an end customer at a price other than that specified by the publisher. With new books, therefore, it is a matter of finding a provider that delivers as quickly as possible and also free of charge.
But some bargains can also be found with new publications: often, only a short time after publication, such books are offered in excellent condition at significantly reduced prices (duplicate gifts, read once, etc.), so that looking in a search engine can also be worthwhile here. There are now more than 1,000 product search engines in Germany (more precisely: price-comparison portals, because most of these engines do not search for offers at all, but merely display the offers delivered to them by dealers). A market study from April 2007 lists the following German search engines specialising in books:
bookbutler.de
book-look.de
buch-idealo.de
buchpreis24.de
buecher24.de
buecher25.de
findmybook.de
daistesja.de
justbooks.de
In addition, the following search engines listed in Wikipedia are included in the consideration
(de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ISBN-Suche):
eurobuch.com
absolutsearch.net
buch-idealo.de
getprice.de
lalisio.com
PreisTester.de
Suitable Search Engines
A book search engine should basically be able to find all books offered for the respective search terms entered; surprisingly, however, this is by no means always the case. Some of the search engines mentioned only take into account books listed in the directory of available books (VLB) or in a wholesale catalogue. Older books (publication date approx. before 1965), books that have been out of print for a long time, book-club editions and books published in the former GDR) are ignored by these search engines. How the various search engines react is to be shown using an example. The search was for ‘golden notebook’ in the title (“The Golden Notebook” is regarded as the main work of this year’s Nobel Prize winner for literature, Doris Lessing):
The following portals found the cheapest offer (€1.35 incl. shipping):
daistesja.de (www.daistesja.de)
JustBooks.de (www.justbooks.de)
buecher24.de (www.buecher24.de)
The following portals also found the cheapest offer (€0.25 without shipping), but provided no information on shipping costs:
eurobuch.com (www.eurobuch.com)
findmybook.de (www.findmybook.de)
The following portals did not find the cheapest offer:
buecher-25.de (http:// http://www.buecher25.de) 2.30 incl. shipping
BookButler.de (de.bookbutler.com) 1.00 without shipping
Buchpreis24.de (http:// http://www.buchpreis24.de) 1.00 without shipping
PreisTester.de (http:// http://www.preistester.de) 3.95 incl. shipping
absolutsearch.net (www.absolutsearch.de) 1.95 without shipping
lalisio.com (litsearch.lalisio.com) 1.95 without shipping
getprice.de (www.getprice.de) 9.95 without shipping
book-look.de (www.book-look.de) 9.95 without shipping
The following portal did not respond:
buch-idealo.de
For some portals (buecher24.de, buecher25.de, BookButler.de, buchpreis24.de, PreisTester.de, absolutsearch.net, book-look.de), the price comparison must be started several times.
For some portals (JustBooks.de, buecher24.de, buecher25.de, BookButler.de, buchpreis24.de, PreisTester.de, absolutsearch.net, book-look.de), the results are not summarised in an overall list. With one portal (lalisio.com), sorting by price is not possible.
Useful Search Terms
Please note: It is not a matter of describing the book you are looking for as precisely as possible. Leave out everything unnecessary and enter only the words that distinguish the book you are looking for from other titles offered. An example:
Suppose you are looking for a book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; you should enter only “Goethe” as the author, since many providers do not spell out authors’ first names.
Then it is important to enter the terms in the title as they appear there, and not in the basic form. Another example: If you are looking for the book “A Sweet Dream” by Doris Lessing, enter “sweet dream” in the title and “Lessing” for author. The result, for example, at daistesja.de (of course only a snapshot): 56 hits. If instead you enter “sweet dream” and author “Lessing”, you receive only 5 hits, since only very few marketplaces or shops have a corresponding translation procedure.Further pitfalls (what else could prevent me from finding the book I am looking for?) can be read on the Internet at http://www.mediahunter.eu/7.html
Search for Unknown Titles
On the marketplace http://www.abebooks.de, you can provide a description of the content at forums.abebooks.de/abesleuthde. Helpful people who know the title and author (and also tell you) can often be found there.
Further Search Options
If you can wait: Use the automatic search repeat from eurobuch.com or daistesja.de. You will be notified by email when the book you are looking for is offered.
If you do not need to become the owner of the book, but only need the information from the book, a library search can help.
At subito.de (www.subito-doc.de/), you can not only search for the desired title, but also order excerpted copies or have the book sent to you by interlibrary loan (directly, i.e. without involving a local library).
