Is Abe Books or World of Books better?

[GingerInAJam]

I want to buy some secondhand books, some of which are difficult to find in the U.K but are available on Abebooks and WOB. Which would people recommend?

TIA

I've used both and they were fine - nothing to choose between them, really.

WOB on eBay give a discount for multiple purchases on some books so that might be worth looking into.

Agree, both were fine when I've used them.
Better in what respect?

I'd also check ebay as it's often cheaper. They both have ebay stores anyway I assume.

They both have ebay stores anyway I assume

Yes, they do.

They are poles apart ethically. Abe Books is owned by Amazon. World of Books buys books from charity shops and has a strong ethos of helping charities and supporting a circular economy. www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/about-us

Oh, that's worth knowing, @Hazelnut5 - thank you. In the frequent situation that P&P for the same book are more or less identical, I'll go for WOB in future.

Oh I didn’t know that @Hazelnut5 I prefer to buy secondhand and use both regularly.

I use WoB a lot. Been very happy with the service so far and delivery is free.

Abebooks is a platform used by many different sellers, WOB is a single seller, who also sell on eBay and abebooks. So it's not really possible to answer your question, as it would depend on which particular abe seller you were dealing with.

They're just... stockists. They don't 'do' anything. Abe is a go-between so you'll be dealing with smaller bookshops. I have had multiple bad experiences with Aardvark books who like to send out incorrect, cheap tat editions after advertising and photographing rare ones.

I've been slated before for using Abe Books, so I've tried to find the sellers own website to buy direct and a lot don't have them, so in order to get out of print books and peace of mind when it comes to transaction safety, I use them frequently.