Well known indie bookchain Well known indie bookchain, now located in the Pacific Northwest. I've never had any difficulties ordering items from the web from them. They were early pioneers of e-commerce, before the 'big gorrila'. Their strength is new and used books, especially academic and scientific publications. This family owned company is a well known collector of used books in North America.

Just another book seller Instead of rating the quality of their books (acceptable, good, very good, like new) they just use the term 'standard' to cover everything. Previously, you could depend upon Powell books to do a superb job of packaging your books so that they'd arrive in pristine condition. The purchase I just got from them lacked sufficient protective material to keep the books from sliding and tumbling about, during their journey to me. There's nothing special about Powell books anymore. They're just another seller of books.

Dishonest merchant -- keeps making… Dishonest merchant -- keeps making promises they don't keep with regards to book conditions, buying of used books, etc. Constantly change their own polices and then fail to follow said policies. We can no longer trust them, and their book selection seems to get worse and worse (they rarely if ever have books I'm looking for in stock, when nearly every other seller DOES have them in stock). Not worth the hassle with the slowwwwwwwww website either. Powells used to be ok to good; now they can't be trusted -- but aren't (yet) as sketchy as most Amazon 3rd party sellers. And Powells was smart enough to stop selling on Amazon, so maybe there is a very very faint hope they will finally improve their company, stop telling lies to customers, and make a genuine comeback... but sadly we've had to move on to more honest sellers who don't tell lies. We refuse to put up with blatant lies, so we will never use or visit Powells again.

Not great for Canadians My order shipped on july 16 and did not received yet, wrote them a message and told me to wait another two months. They did not want to give me a refund ( i would of sent the books back when i got them ) i live in canada. Just a bit disappointing.

Powell's Bookstore is the worst Powell's Bookstore is the absolute worst online business you can imagine. They take your money and fail to send you books. They do not reply to emails. The link they provided to follow my order was a bad link. The web site will not let me log into their Web Site or change my password. They have convinced me to go back to Amazon, which is very sad.