ph_z - 2014-10-30

Buy at your local book shop, right from Amazon's shopping cart.

Amazon is great. They have a huge amount of books (and other stuff) in all variants and languages. They have a great web site that makes it easy to browse around and find the stuff you want and even the stuff you didn't know you wanted. But they also collect a huge amount of data about you. After a couple of years, they know a lot about you, probably more than you want them to.

Local book shops are great, too. They're mostly nice, quiet places with friendly people. They add value to your home town's infrastructure. They care about books. And they don't track what you buy. But many times, they don't have on stock exactly what you want. The good thing is that they can usually get anything you like within one business day.

This is where Juruti comes in. Fill your shopping cart on Amazon's web site just like you would if you were buying there. Then, instead of checking out, hit the Juruti button to compose an e-mail containing all the items and send it to your favourite local book shop.

Here are a couple of reasons why this might make sense (not all necessarily apply to everybody):

  • You may get your books faster then with Amazon. Usually, you can pick up your stuff the next day.
  • It may be more convenient. Maybe you cycle/drive/walk past a book shop anyway on your daily way from and to work. Picking up a couple of books there is much superior to the hassle of somebody having to be at home when your stuff is delivered and if not, pick it up at a neighbour's place or at the post office.
  • It's "greener", because some of the stuff you ordered may already be on stock in the book shop and so less stuff has to be sent around by couriers. Or maybe not, I don't know. Anyway, being "green" is a good claim these days.
  • It's better for your privacy. Nobody keeps track of what you bought and when (you don't need an Amazon account to use Juruti). OK, your book shop knows, but they probably won't keep a record.
  • It may be cheaper, as you save the transport fee. Especially relevant in countries where Amazon is not present.
  • You support your local shopping infrastructure.

Some things you should know or consider:

  • Juruti won't (and can't) check if what you put in your cart is actually all books. So, if you order a lawn mower at your local book shop, don't blame it on me.
  • The active tab must contain the Amazon shopping cart with at least one item in it. Otherwise, the Juruti button will be inactive.
  • Juruti uses a public web service (http://tools.wmflabs.org/isbn/IsbnCheckAndFormat) to retrieve the ISBN-10 and ISBN-13. If this service is unavailable or answers too slowly, Amazon's ASIN will be used instead (which is equal to the non-formatted ISBN-10)
  • Maybe you should talk to your book shop's personnel before sending them order mails or at least put some explanatory words above your first order, just to make sure it's OK with them.
  • Put your contact details at the bottom of order e-mails (see setting "Order e-mail body outro"), it makes your order more personal and trustworthy.

As of now, Juruti supports composing e-mails using the locally installed default mail client or the GMail web app. E-mails are formatted plain text and look best using a fixed-width font.