Abe Books’ search interface is straightforward and makes narrowing down your book results very easy.  On the main page, you can search by the typical search functions:  author, title, keyword, or ISBN.  During our navigation, we found Abe Books' website to be very bland compared to their competitors' graphic designs.

Good thing we didn't "judge a book by its cover!" This online bookstore is packed with books - over 100 million books from 13,000 independent book sellers!  As we narrowed our search down, we were able to learn more about the individual titles and their condition, plus details about the bookseller and their terms.

Because the booksellers set their own terms, you need to review all of the information carefully before placing an order. Even though your purchases will be made through separate booksellers, all of your items will be combined in a single order for added convenience.

• Three newsletters you can subscribe to – one for collectors, readers, and book club members.
• Giftsleuth – a forum where users ask one another for gift suggestions.

All in All, Abe Books' is a relatively large online bookstore.  They proved to be very effective finding all our hard-to-find books, not to mention popular new releases.  Even though the site is a little plain, it is very easy to navigate.  We were a little let down with their customer support - Only email and online help for book buyers.  During our price comparison, Abe Books beat everyone elses price by a long shot.  Star Reviews gives them 5.5 Stars!

The Borders website uses Amazon.com’s layout and interface, so finding what you want is simple if you are accustomed to Amazon like we are.  The best part about this partnership is if you are an Amazon user, you won’t have to open a separate account; you just use your existing Amazon.com account to complete your order.

When we entered our search criteria,  a large list of possible titles were generated, and we could sort these further by relevance, customer reviews, price, bestselling, publication date, and alphabetically. When you pick a title to look at further, you’ll clearly see the price, product details (length, publisher, book description, and more), and customer rating.  Who are we kidding...when you're partnered with Amazon, very little is left overlooked.

• Borders has partnered with Amazon.com to handle all online orders
• Book listings available in Spanish, as well as in English

Customer support was impeccable, answering our phone call immediately. Our questions weren't out of this world, since we are so familiar with navigating Amazon.  Border's selection and effectivness cannot be beat now that it's backed by Amazon.  With little to nothing negative to say at all, Star Reviews awards Borders the Top Rated position with 5.5 Stars!

The Powell’s Book's website is very easy on the eyes, boasting a well-put-together interface.

We really appreciated the significant amount of information Powell's provides, including the ability to browse the table of contents, price comparisons for the book in different formats, reader comments, publication date, and more.  You’ll also be advised where the book or similar titles can be found in the actual Powell's store, which might be helpful if you’re near one of their Oregon bookstores.

• Now accepts payment through Paypal.
• Blogs written about books, authors, and other related topics.
• A chance to win $250 in books just for signing up for Powell’s newsletter.
• Powell’s has managed to snag exclusive interviews with some of the top authors in the industry, including Martin Amis, Frank McCourt, and Stephen King.

Powell's Books offers the same selection as larger bookstore competitors, plus the ability to search for rare, hard-to-find books.  With a clean site layout, we were able to zip through the content, locating everything we needed, including customer support.  While their email responses are slightly standardized, we had a clear, knowledgeable response by phone. We were very pleased with all aspects of Powell's, except for their higher prices.  This brought their rating down to 5.0 Stars!

As we began our review, we thought the Books-A-Million website was fairly easy to navigate when using the search box at the top of the page. Other than that, we did not find this site as user friendly as some of the rest, and it had a less-than-appealing site design.
Once your results appear, the most recent release matching your search criteria can be found at the top of the page. After you click it, you’ll see some basic information, including the number of pages, the release date, customers’ ratings, as well as the price for users and the reduced price for club members. As far as book information goes...Books-A-Million did a good job at covering these features.

Star Reviews stumbled upon a really cool feature - Books-A-Million’s Personal Shopper Service. You can receive gift recommendations for anyone by simply sending an email with a few details about the person and your price range for the gift. Then, you'll receive an email back including great gift ideas for your loved ones!

• Books-A-Million now has a bargain books section for finding cool books at low prices.
• Millionaire’s Club Discount Card which saves users an extra 10% off purchases for a year – joining the club costs $15 annually.

Star Reviews was disappointed with Books-A-Million's selection.  We didn't find CD’s or DVD’s and our book results did provide the large selection that others did. Their prices are competitive if you are a club member.  We thought customer service could use some work considering we received two different answers (email and phone) for the same question.  Star Reviews sums up our experience by giving Books-A-Million 4.5 Stars!