Hello, and welcome to tonight's edition of Royal Masterpiece Design and Designer. I see a few of you have just posted your inspirational designs. I congratulate you and would like to begin with a design that I personally find intriguing. Let me first ask you all a question: what would you think if there was a website where you could buy a book, but...without ever having to go to a bookstore? Or what if you could buy a book without even leaving your home? You may think that sounds crazy, but I assure you it's very much real. Not only can you buy books, but also movies, dvds, and games and the people that sell you these things will even know everything about and can recommend titles to you next time you visit them. This may sound like something straight out of a science fiction novel, but it is in fact, not.
All you need to buy books without ever having to leave the home is a personal computer, an internet connection, and a credit card. The website to visit is http://www.amazon.com/ or .ca if you are living in Canada. Once you are there you can do a search for just about any book that's been published in North America, or if you can read a foreign language you can search for a book in German, French, Japanese, Chinese or even British English. The search works fairly well and is especially accurate when inputing an author's name. For advanced users there is also an advanced search that can be accessed by clicking on 'advanced search' next to the regular search. Here, users can input things such as a book's ISBN number narrow their search down exactly. After a book is found, there is all kinds of useful information about it such as its publisher, isbn number, price, some user reviews, and occasionally viewers are allowed to view the first few pages of a book. There is also a picture of its cover and a list of similar books.
All you need to buy books without ever having to leave the home is a personal computer, an internet connection, and a credit card. The website to visit is http://www.amazon.com/ or .ca if you are living in Canada. Once you are there you can do a search for just about any book that's been published in North America, or if you can read a foreign language you can search for a book in German, French, Japanese, Chinese or even British English. The search works fairly well and is especially accurate when inputing an author's name. For advanced users there is also an advanced search that can be accessed by clicking on 'advanced search' next to the regular search. Here, users can input things such as a book's ISBN number narrow their search down exactly. After a book is found, there is all kinds of useful information about it such as its publisher, isbn number, price, some user reviews, and occasionally viewers are allowed to view the first few pages of a book. There is also a picture of its cover and a list of similar books.
You're probably thinking: "If I buy these books online, won't it cost a fortune in shipping and handling like on those stupid informercials?" Well, no because amazon's books are often sold used or discounted making them much cheaper than buying them at a store and its possible to locate some fairly rare ones too. If a user wishes to buy a book they can click on add to shopping kart which is list that keeps track of all books the user wishes to purchase and then they can finally purchase them by clicking on 'proceed to check out'. The user will need to log in or register if they don't have an account. Accounts are fairly easy to register for and only require information such as a mailing address, name and password. Once a user has registered they can now proceed to the checkout! At that point a screen comes up asking what kind of shipping and payment methods are preferred and there's a huge variety of options. Once these things are decided, a bill showing how much has been paid comes up and an email is sent to you to prevent any purchases made in error.
Well Amazon doesn't distribute credit card information, unfortunately they store it on their system.That way anyone who has a user's password can use their credit card to buy books. If a user is logged in its also very easy to buy books accidently by clicking on buy with one click which doesn't show a sales receipt.
One of the nicer features of Amazon.com is that everytime a user logs in they are shown a list of books they might be interested in based on their previous purchases. From my experience these titles are actually worth a look or two.
I'll admit, Amazon may not be the newest or most interesting service, but its become successful over these years for a reason and that's that it works from a design that's remained fairly simple and functions well. Its efficient and always provides confirmation emails so users know that they've bought something and won't accidently do it twice. It may be a cliche to say this, but Amazon gives people what they want.
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