Mother's Day came and went recently. Since I live in the US and my mother is in Australia I am always faced with the issue of where to buy presents. Adam made the comment once, which para-phrased, went something like 'everyone is first world now, just the shipping rates vary'. A fantastic little observation, but when it comes to books in America and Australia, the shipping rates do vary, but the prices do to a horrendous amount. This is a book from Amazon;

This is the same book from Dymocks.

Even taking exchange rates and shipping rates into account it was way, way cheaper, for me to buy several books from Amazon and have them shipped to Australia rather than ship directly from Dymocks. To add to the pain, last time I shipped from Dymocks they said they had them all, which was untrue, and then shipped them one by one. Amazon is far more reliable in this area too. So more expensive, despite the advantage of lower shipping rates, and poor service. Bit of a no brainer really.