As an example I thought we’d take a look at books that are seen as useful towards an A level (or A/S Level) English Literature qualification. These aren’t the universal reading list (we haven’t managed to get a definitive list – if you’re a teacher who can help and wants their students to buy their books as cheaply as possible then get in touch – we’d love to hear from you).

For coursework (we’re going back a few years here!) we bought a lot of secondhand books, both from previous students and great booksellers who sold new and used versions of books. We want Ewelike to help and give you a choice between hardback & paperback and new & used.

The English Reading List seems heavily stacked towards well regarded modern and classic fiction. Here’s a small selection and we’ll try and expand it later on.

• John Clare – Selected Poems
• David Powell’s Major Works Book – Recommended for enhancing a student’s knowledge of John Clare
• William Wordworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Lyrical Ballads: With a Few Other Poems New Edition
• William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Lyrical Ballads: With a Few Other Poems Penguin edition – available secondhand only
• Shelley (Percy Bysshe) Selected Poems – Ode to the Westwind and more poems
• Expanded set of Shelley Poems – Poetry and Prose Book – may be useful for additional reading
• David Pirie’s Open University Guide to Shelley may be of use for context
• Paul Foot’s Shelley Biography for background reading

A fair number of people have contacted us to find out how we did it – how did we find the recommended texts using Ewelike and how can they be sure that Ewelike is showing them exactly the recommended book (and not a different edition or poor substitute with the same name).

I’ll get on to why afterwards but the trick is the ISBN number – For an example let’s take the A-Level English Literature Syllabus from AQA (see http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/pdf/AQA-6741-UNIT4-SETTEXT08.PDF).

With there you’ll see books listed and their ISBN numbers. Ewelike knows all about ISBN numbers so you can search for them directly.

Let’s take an example. The text in the PDF says

”
Shelley’s Revolutionary Year, introduction by Paul Foot, Redwords, 1990. ISBN 1872208002
”

First grab the ISBN – 1872208002 – now paste that into the search bar in Ewelike and hit “search”.

Hey presto, Ewelike finds the book, and if you click on the product (you can check the names) then you’ll see the product page and we’ll start looking for the best prices we can find.

Just incase you’re paranoid we show the ISBN on the product page so you can cross-check that this is EXACTLY the book you’re looking for.

If you’ll be doing this a lot then we’d recommend following the advice we gave in a previous blog post – Lazy Searching: No Typing – how to find the best price for books and products without typing.

NOTE: I mentioned earlier that we always match on EXACTLY the item that you asked for. Ewelike is pretty much unique because it only tries to match like-for-like, we don’t give substitutes and we’re transparent about what you’re buying (we even show the barcode / ISBN so you can be doubly sure). Also we don’t limit ourselves to things that we get paid for, instead if it’s cheaper elsewhere (or only available elsewhere) then we’ll show you that price so you get the best deal you can.

For example, you can find the cheapest editions of the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) rules from the most unlikely sources – you can find the 4th Edition D&D players manual at various supermarket and book outlets, and that applies for the Dungeon Masters fourth edition guide too!

Prefer Card or Board Games? Tried Munchkin the Card Game by Steve Jackson Games? If not then you should. Alternately there’s Munchkin Quest the board game version of Munchkin (again by Steve Jackson Games) if you prefer board games with a fantasy/RPG flavour.

Prefer a more gothic feel to your RPG games? Then Vampire: the Requiem Core Book by White Wolf Games.

Alternately there’s classics like Warhammer Ancient Battles – the Historical version of Warhammer.

As ever, if there’s more you want to see then shout!

Before we start we need to state the below isn’t scientific: it’s our opinion. Also, somethings don’t fall into the categories easily so you’ll need to apply judgement before progressing (for instance if Star Wars: A New Hope came out on Blu-ray tomorrow would I buy it? Damn right I would!).

At the moment we’re working on building a simple tool to help you with the below – but until that’s ready here’s the questions.

For each Blu-ray you’re thinking of buying simply answer the questions and add up the values from the “Score” column depending on whether you answered yes or no. The total score you get is then a measure of whether you should go for a Blu-ray or stick with the DVD.

Total: _______

If you scored over 3 then this is at best a candidate purchase for a Blu-ray, if you scored 4 or over then it’s definitely to be considered.

Here at the Ewelike Price and Product Comparison Site we like to ensure that our users get the best value all of the time.

To this end we’ve been doing a bit of data analysis (and we’re adding data mining) so we can determine when products are the best value – and thus when people should buy.

I thought I’d share a little of this analysis so that people could see why price trends for (popular) DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs and Books in the UK are important if you want to save money, and in this recession we all want to save money right?

If you don’t care how we worked things out then skip straight ahead to our advice on when to buy DVDs, Blu-rays, Books and CDs.

How we Calculated the Results and Drew our Conclusions..

From our price information (of which we’ve got a ridiculous amount – hundreds of millions of prices across a year or two for close to a million products) I limited the set of data using the following criteria (skip over the below if it bores you and you want to get to the nitty gritty!).

Criteria

1. I’d pick some POPULAR products for illustration, there’s no niche Jazz CDs or Books on Wargaming to be found in this list
2. The list and timescale are small, I started measurement a maximum of 4 weeks before xmas 2008 and ended at the current set of prices
3. I’ve limited the prices to those from a few major retailers (you can guess which ones but it’s 20 of the top UK sellers from Ewelike) – this stops rogue prices from appearing (where an Amazon.co.uk marketplace seller has a single copy to sell and charges a high postage value).
4. All prices are for brand-new products for EXACTLY the same product – there’s no “like-for-like” in this list.  If it’s not identical (packaging/contents etc.) then it’s not included as a viable price.

The Graph

Price Analysis - Blu-ray, DVD, CD, Book price changes over time for major UK retailers/stores - (start of) Dec 2008 -> (end of) March 2009

The graph’s a little complicated (mainly because I just want to share the inside scoop with you without worrying about reformatting the graph a million times) but if you follow each product (and it’s type) then you’ll see the trends.  Don’t worry though, if it all looks like a blur and hocus-pocus then I’ve also added my interpretation and advice based upon it (and the other information we’ve crunched to make decisions) below.

Results – Price Changes per Type

The results are a surprise for most people but they apply to a lot of the products we compare week-in-week-out.

The main things are:

• CDs typically have a lower price for a few weeks on first release, this then climbs for the next 10 weeks or so to nearer the retail price before it decends again
• Blu-rays are a high value product and start off at silly levels, they slowly decend in price but are currently holding their value well across time
• Books will be discounted heavily like CDs for the first few weeks of release, again this will climb back to nearer the RRP before decending again.  However, be careful after 26 weeks of sales the prices can vary enormously.
• DVDs are very predictable, pre-release you can get a reasonable deal against the RRP and this continues for 2 weeks or so post-release.  After that the price will continually decend over time.  If you can wait for 13 – 26 weeks after release then the cost will likely be half of the original price (and may be included in 3 for 2 offers or other bargain offers).

So, when should I buy a DVD, CD, Blu-ray or Book?

• CD – Buy on release or wait a while – if it’s something you really want then set a price alert on it (for a single non-special CD then £8.o0 is probably achievable).  If it’s a special release or limited edition (and you think it won’t sell out) then hang on – the price will come down a lot and you can snap up a bargain.
• DVD - Unless you really really want it then hang on keep the faith and it will reduce in price.  There’s no best price alert to set so just set something you’re happy with.
• Blu-ray - Buy as a pre-release when the stores are competing or hang on and keep your fingers crossed the price will reduce.  For the savvy buyer then Region Free blu-rays are available via other sellers where you can get a version of the movie from the USA (or elsewhere) at a much better price (and sometimes with much better special features on them)
• Books – If it’s a popular price then follow the same advice as CDs, however also remember that you can await the paperback/soft cover release of the book and get a good saving that way.  Also after a few months then books also become available as used/secondhand copies – if you’re going to read it on the beach and not worry about how it looks afterwards then used books are a great way to save money.

Tools to Help You Bag Bargains on Ewelike

On Ewelike we work really hard to ensure you get the best prices we can get hold of.  Other price comparison services only show prices for which they’ll get a cut of the sale – if a retailer won’t give them money to click-through to their site then you won’t see it.  We’re different – we show you the best prices we can find regardless of whether we get paid or not.  If you find the best prices then it doesn’t matter if we don’t get a fraction of a percent of the sale, you’ll come back and use us again because you can trust us.  See our Ewelike Mission Statement for more information on who we are and what we’re all about.

We also have a new tool that we’ve opened up in the last few months – the price alert.  With this you can tell us your email address and what you want to pay and we’ll let you know if and when it ever hits that price.  We only use the email address for that reason and only that reason.

Ewelike also allows our users to login and set preferences – if you love play.com and always want to see their prices first then that’s something you can do.  Alternately if there’s a retailer you hate then we can automatically hide it for you.

For Books especially (although this applies to CDs and DVDs too to a lesser extent) we’ll show you the used prices for those books too – alongside the maximum postage charge for that retailer.  Sometimes it makes sense to buy secondhand books because they can be such a bargain.  It also allows you to find books that are out of print.

It’s worth checking the auction tab in the prices area incase somebody on eBay has a bargain for you to look at…

Lastly, we’ve got bookmarklet tools so you can easily find products on ewelike – so even if you’ve found your product on amazon or another site then it’s easily to quickly check with ewelike if it’s the best price.