I’m not very adventurous when it comes to ordering things online. I tend to have my favourite places for certain items and stick with them even if somewhere else happens to have the same thing for slightly cheaper, it’s only when it’s a lot cheaper do I stray. For books I use amazon.co.uk, not very original I know, but it was the first place I used and I’ve always had great service from them. They let me down recently though so I strayed to a competitor. No, nothing to do with misplaced orders, double-billing or anything like that from amazon, but simply the book I wanted had a month long delivery date - not good when you need it for a taught course which has already started. So I strayed and using the price comparison feature at kelkoo.com I strayed all the way over to blackwells.co.uk which not only had the book in stock but also had the cheapest prices of all around...not bad considering the book (“Mobile Robotics: A Practical Introduction”) is hardly a title which will ever be flying off the shelves!

Blackwell’s are a company first formed in the UK in 1879 but which now has 80 shops across the UK and 100 years of experience in delivering books through their international mail order wing. blackwells.co.uk is their place on the net and a very nice place it is indeed. Blackwell’s are geared more towards supplying academic and professional books and proudly claim to be the UK’s largest retailer of such texts. I can’t argue, they were one of only a few places which not only stocked the somewhat specialised book I was looking for, but also had it in stock and ready to ship. Their stock isn’t solely aimed at academic texts though as they also stock general works of popular fiction and children’s books but this obviously isn’t what they pride themselves on. With an alleged 2.5 million titles to browse through you’re likely to find all but the most obscure works here anyway.

• General Impressions

• Browsing Around

At the moment there is a further set of browsing options because it’s nearing Christmas and not wanting to miss out on that particular money spinning bandwagon there are links to Christmas gift ideas which is worth a look as always. You’ll also find a competition page which asks you to do something rather laborious to win £200...might be worth a look as most compers I know see this kind of effort inducing competition and move on to the next one sharpish. ;o)

• Registering With The Site

Now you’re registered you can buy your items. Clicking on the “buy” link which appears underneath the title of all items adds that item to your shopping basket, shows you the price and overall price of your basket and allows you to change options such as the quantity or to change your mind and remove it again. You can continue browsing or checkout, same drill, you’ve seen it all before, it’s simple and it works. Let’s say we mooched over to the checkout and assume we’ve already registered(if not, you’ll be prompted to do so). Having registered already and logged in, you’ll be prompted to confirm the delivery address to send the items to. The address you registered with will be displayed along with an option to send to a different one should you so wish.

I can’t say ordering online is ever a particularly enjoyable experience but it’s made much more pleasurable when you deal with sites which are this easy to navigate, this intuitive with their ordering process and keep you informed at all times about the state of play with your order. I would imagine if I ever had a problem with an order then my query would be dealt with quickly and efficiently as well, it just gives you that kind of feeling. I can’t fault them at all. Their prices aren’t exactly world beating but they were the cheapest for the book I was looking for EVEN though the price quoted was the cover price! The free postage really helps keep the cost down. My order arrived on time, in pefect condition and they haven’t bugged me since for any unsolicited reason. What more can you ask for? Maybe Blackwell’s isn’t going to be your first port of call for general reading material, although it’s always worth a look, but if you’re looking for something a little more specialised then it’s definitely worth checking out as they probably have it in stock rather than waiting a couple of weeks for it to be ordered from more widely advertised sites. A site which I find very easy to recommend but can't give 5 stars to because it's not likely to be the cheapest source of books you'll find and the browsing options are quite limited.