Great value and service! I just ordered my University Books through this business for half the price at the University Book Store. They gave me updates on my orders and keep in contact about how it was processing. Great shop! Use all the time.

If you're not wanting your products straight away, then this is a GREAT online store. Plenty of choice, great specials and prices, the free shipping was fantastic! The order took about 3 weeks to come, but I was prepared for that, and the company kept me in the loop about when my product was dispatched and when it should arrive, and everything ran very smoothly! :)

Approximate cost: $50

I've ordered books and dvds from Fishpond over the past 4 years. Discounts are great, prices are well below what you pay in the shops and the free postage is a bonus. Most items arrive fairly quickly but if you need something for a specific date, make sure you order it well in advance just to be on the safe side.

Have had some good experiences and some bad ones. Need to be careful with how cheap they actually are and I suggest you do your research. The free shipping is fabulous though, and now all the time!

I've been a regular Fishpond customer for just on three years.

I was curious to know just how much I've bought from them, so I logged into my Fishpond account, went back through all my past orders, and added it up. In three years, I have made 12 separate orders, consisting of 132 items, with a total value of nearly $3400. So I think that's a fairly sound basis on which to judge a business.

I was introduced to Fishpond by a friend who knows I buy a lot of books. I was initially reluctant, because one hears of a lot of internet scams. Fishpond? I'd never heard of this mob - how do I know I can trust them? But she assured me that she had been dealing with them for ages, and that they are trustworthy. So I sent off my first order, and I've never regretted it.

On the plus side:

(1) delivery is free for all new books. It used to be free only if you ordered more than a certain dollar amount, but now it's free regardless of the size of your order.

For used books, there is a small delivery charge ($4.99 at time of writing), but that's because used books are sent directly from seller to buyer. Other than putting buyers in touch with sellers, Fishpond has nothing to do with used book transactions, so it's understandable that each seller needs to recoup their postage costs. It's either that, or increase the price of the book.

(2) Fishpond's prices are very competitive. I'm not one of those people who uses Booko to compare the price of every single book I'm seeking to buy, to see which online retailer is cheapest. Unless the book is particularly expensive, I reckon life's too short to spend time haggling over every little cent. But on the occasions I have used Booko to compare prices, Fishpond stacks up well.

(3) They'll send each item as it is ready, rather than waiting until the whole lot are ready. This means that if one of your items is taking a lot longer to ship than the others, it won't hold up the others. Fishpond's items can come from several different sources. Some come via Fishpond's warehouse, some come directly to you from their suppliers. So if you have ordered several items, expect a lot of separate parcels to arrive, at different times.

(4) they give you an estimate of how many days it will be before the item is shipped to you, and generally I have found those time estimates to be short and fairly accurate. I occasionally order books as gifts, but rarely with a delivery date in mind (Christmas, birthday, etc). Rather, I think "so-and-so will like that book," and I order it, and the book can just turn up when it turns up. If it takes several weeks, that's OK with me - but it rarely does. After I submit an order, the first book usually arrives within a few days, and the majority within two weeks. The occasional straggler might take a bit longer.

(5) they send you regular updates of how your order is going, usually emailing you as each item is despatched, or warning you that it might take a little longer than anticipated. I've been very surprised to read other people's reviews saying that they sometimes wait weeks and weeks with nothing arriving and no word from Fishpond as to what the problem is. With one exception, which I'll get to later, that has not been my experience. Moreover, if you are feeling impatient and want to know what's happening with a particular item, all you need do is log into your Fishpond account and use the "Track my order" function. It will tell you exactly what's going on.

(6) they fill orders accurately. So far, I've never been sent the wrong item. I've also never been sent a damaged item and had to send it back.

(7) I've needed to contact Fishpond on three occasions, twice with general complaints and once with a specific query about an item I'd ordered which hadn't arrived. It was easy to find the "Send us an Email" link, and each email was answered very promptly.

On the minus side:

(1) the fact that you receive a lot of separate parcels may be annoying for you if you're not at home to receive them, and the delivery person either won't leave them on your doorstep or you don't want them left on your doorstep in case they get stolen. You'll find yourself regularly coming home to a little card in the letterbox saying there's a parcel to collect at your nearest post office. Once or twice is not too bad, but it can be irritating going back and forth to the post office almost every day. If you think you'd find this annoying, do you have a trusted neighbour who is home most of the day? Ask them if you can change the Fishpond delivery address so that the parcels arrive at their house instead of yours. Offer to do a favour for your neighbour in return - if they're elderly and a bit housebound, can you pick up something from the shops for them? - and you'll probably find they won't mind.

There's no point asking Fishpond not to send the items separately. I already tried that. They can't. As I mentioned earlier, not all items are sent via their warehouse, and even for the ones that are, they don't have the space in their warehouse to accumulate the items in your order and send everything in one hit.

(2) they tend to overpackage things. Whenever my orders from Fishpond begin arriving, my wheelie bin fills up rapidly with a veritable mountain of cardboard. The most egregious example was the time I ordered a thin book that measured 21.5cm by 14cm. It arrived all by itself in a thick cardboard package that measured a whopping 52cm by 38cm. I am not exaggerating. I can understand that Fishpond is anxious to protect the contents of the packages, especially CDs and DVDs, but this is ridiculous. When I complained about this excessive packaging to Fishpond, they said that sometimes the packaging was handled by their suppliers and was therefore out of their control, but that they would pass my complaint on to their own packaging department "for their consideration", whatever that means.

(3) I once ordered an item which I was charged for but never received. It was a used book (which Fishpond sells via a function called "Sell Yours"), the one and only occasion I have ever ordered a used book through Fishpond. When the book had not turned up a full month after Fishpond charged my credit card, I went to the "Track Your Order" section of their website, and it said the book had been "Released to Warehouse". That was not only unhelpful, it was plain wrong, because used books do NOT go through Fishpond's warehouse; they go directly from seller to buyer. I then consulted their FAQ page, and it said (paraphrased): we don't get involved with used book problems; if a used book doesn't arrive, consult the seller directly. But I had no email address for the seller! It wasn't on the order page, nor on the invoice. So I sent an email to Fishpond. They replied promptly, and the following is an extract (comments in square brackets are mine):

"It appears that the seller may have cancelled this item as you were placing the order as there is no record of their email address." [I doubt this is the reason; it would be jolly coincidental for the seller to be cancelling it at EXACTLY the same moment I'm trying to buy it. Rather, I suspect a computer error on Fishpond's part.] "Normally with Sell Yours orders the email address is clearly displayed as advised on our FAQ page. The item does not come through our warehouse. I have passed your feedback on to the relevant department for their consideration. We will get involved with a Sell Yours order if you have emailed the seller and not heard from them. We will email them from there and if they are unable to send the item or we do not hear from them we will cancel the order and refund you for the item plus the $4.99 postage. We will soon be implementing a Seller Rating to give buyers a better choice when purchasing used items. Naturally, the higher the rating the better the seller."

I never did get the seller's email address, or the book, but Fishpond refunded my money promptly. I remain sceptical of their explanation. I am reluctant to buy used books from them again, and I am astonished that my "Track Your Order" page shows, to this very day, that the used book in question STILL has a status of "Released to Warehouse"! You'd think they'd change it to "Cancelled" or something, but it doesn't appear that they're ever going to change it. However, I'm not much bothered. At least I got my money back.

That was my only significant negative experience. It was one item out of well over a hundred, and as I said, it was also the one and only used book. With new items, I have found Fishpond's track record to be excellent. I would recommend them for new books and DVDs without hesitation, and in fact have already done so to more than one person. I see Fishpond are now branching out into other products (toys, games, electronics, bags, beauty products), but I have never ordered any of these so cannot comment on them.

POSTSCRIPT 12 Nov 2011: Seven whole months have gone by since the unsent used book kerfuffle described above, and I finally got sick of staring at its incorrect "Released to Warehouse" status that is making the order look as though it's still outstanding. So I mailed Fishpond. I got a reply less than 12 hours later, apologising for the error, and cancelling the item, so that order is now closed off. In summary: glitches do occur sometimes, but Fishpond makes prompt and diligent attempts to rectify them when you bring them to Fishpond's attention.

Painfuly slow dispatch and delivery. My item did not arrive in time to give as a gift and I ordered 6 weeks proir to their birthday. I will never use them again

I have been buying books off here a lot lately. I find it very easy to navigate, find what I'm looking for, and they are usually one of the cheapest online. Plus free postage! Have had no problems with them so far. Always have delivered within expected date of arrival.

Highly recommend.

Great prices? Sure! Free postage? Great! Will you ever see your books? Unlikely! I ordered from this site, on the understanding that it was "in stock" and "Ready to ship". I waited and waited and waited but nothing came. There are no contact details on their website (and if there are, they are incredibly difficult to find). Messages first popped up saying that my book had been shipped to the supplier (but it was supposed to be in stock?) and then that it had been sent. Nothing came for two months! I requested a refund, and (after waiting for at least another two weeks) I finally got it. In all this time, not ONE email - no receipt or invoice, no acknowledgment of my refund request and no email saying I had actually been refunded. What a complete waste of time! Ordering from overseas is faster and you get better service!

Approximate cost: $15

Great place to buy books of all kinds, easy sight to maneuver with just about anything your looking for...quick and easy...

Great place if you actually get your books and the right ones at that. Had a couple of separate order problems here. But they did refund lost order which gives you peace of mind shopping but then another time sent me a wrong item but fixed it up. Can take some time for order to come.