FAQ

When something goes wrong during Checkout, our system reserves the books for you and your order status will show Pending Payment. If you then try to place the order again, you will see a message next to each book, saying the requested quantity is not available (unless we have more than one copy of the book available, of course).

Please contact us to resolve the problem.

We have done as much as we can to make it as safe as possible to buy from us.

We don't save any credit card information on our site and we also don't process payments on our website.

We use the off-site, well-established payment gateway, Payfast, for payment processing. Payfast has rather stringent criteria for signing up and it is possible to complain directly to them, if you experience problems.

We have a security certificate installed on our website which encrypts all data processed

We also allow for EFT payments to be made and these, of course, can be reversed by registering a dispute with your bank.

Making payments and receiving your books are therefore as safe as we can make them!

We can try as we have quite a few places where we typically source books from but we can't give any guarantees that we'll be successful.

It has, unfortunately, happened a few times that a customer requests that we find specific books for him or her and, after we have done so, we never hear from them again and we are stuck with books that no-one else wants.

We haven't yet figured out how to solve this problem - unlike sellers of new items, we can't return unsold books.

You should also try to find the book/s on BidorBuy or Facebook Marketplace. There are many trusted book sellers listing there (but still be careful!) and it is often surprising what one can find!

Unfortunately it's very difficult to answer this. We buy books as we come across them.

Often, when asked this question, it is at a time when the author has become very popular and his/her books then become especially difficult to find.

Please add these books to your wishlist and our system will email you if they come back into stock.

Thank you -)

We try very hard to get our hands on pre-loved books and we've been lucky to locate sources where we can buy books new or in very good condition.

Of course, that's not always the case and therefore we provide a broad description of the condition of each book.

Being human, we aren't always completely consistent when it comes to choosing, for example, between Very Good and Good but we believe in stating the condition as somewhat worse than it is, so you're pleasantly surprised, rather than unpleasantly upset!

No, we don't.

Unfortunately there is quite an illegal trade in textbooks and, even though we realize that new textbooks are very expensive, we do not support illegal activities in any way.

Unfortunately we don't buy or accept trade-ins.

Firstly, if you look at the prices we sell books for, you can imagine that we won't pay you much for your books and you would feel insulted that the books you paid so much for are now worth so little.

Secondly, we have over 3000 books in storage that we have not yet listed on our website (each book has to be added manually), so we have more than enough to keep us busy!

As we sell used books it's difficult to know when we'll come across a particular book. We still show out of stock books on our catalog to enable customers to add these books to their wishlist. When a book on your wishlist goes back into stock, you will receive an email alert from our system.

Large online retailers also have many items that are out of stock. One just tends not to notice this because they stock so many items!

We don't have a physical shop - that's how we manage to keep our prices low - and, in the past, we allowed collection of books.

Unfortunately we don't offer that option anymore as we have had more than one very scary experience and it is simply just not worth taking the risk.

Buying just one book can often lead to shipping costing more than the book.

We don't make any profit on shipping, so, unfortunately, that's just the way it is.

We could, of course, just make our books more expensive -)

Large companies can negotiate very good courier delivery prices to pass on to their customers but, for that to happen, one must send out a large number of parcels per month. We're not there yet!

We provide the following shipping options, depending on where you are located:

DSV Couriers

• Anywhere in South Africa 

• Option availability calculated based on total weight of parcel

The Courier Guy

• Selected areas in South Africa

• Option availability calculated based on postal code and total weight of parcel

• Probably the most cost-effective option for parcels delivered in and around Johannesburg and Pretoria

PEP Paxi

• Shipped to a PEP store of your choice (to be specified during Checkout)

• Needs to be collected from the specified PEP store

• The most economical option for parcels going anywhere in South Africa but you will wait 6-9 working days for delivery.

Please note:

• All shipping options include tracking numbers

• We don't make any profit on shipping costs

You are welcome to phone us on 072-400-3663 or use our contact form and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. 

We are also available on Facebook and Twitter (X).

It's always difficult to figure out whether it is safe to buy on a new website one has discovered. There are too many scams out there and the Internet just lacks that face that makes one feel that there is human contact out there or at least someone to hold responsible.

We can give the following assurances:

• We used to sell on BidorBuy/BobShop (between 2013 and 2021) where we were a Trusted Seller and had an excellent feedback rating (99%). Unfortunately, we had to stop due to commission costs not making this channel worthwhile. 

• Our website is secured with a Comodo security certificate

• We do not store payment information on our website

• BooksAgain belongs to a registered closed corporation in good standing, Quiddity, which has been in operation since 1999

• BooksAgain has been trading since 2008

• We have over 10 000 registered customers.

We hope this goes some way towards reassuring you that we are perfectly legitimate!