Booktopia Reviews 1,260

DO NOT PURCHASE FROM BOOKTOPIA.

Have purchased my university text books on May 25th and company went into VOLUNTARY administration on July 3rd. No communication, clearly knew their course of action before I purchased my books online and yet had the ‘arrival
Date 14th July’. Conveniently right after administration.

PHONE DOESNT WORK. EMAILS ARNT ANSWERED FOR MONTHS, THEN FIND THE LINK TO ADMINISTRATION.

Disgusting company!

I purchased 14 books two months ago, to take it overseas for my workshops and just found out they can't send the items. I called them one month ago and they promised will send it and all was untrue, I am so stress now!!!

They took my money, made promises they couldn't keep, didn't send the item, didn't refund the money, absolutely criminal organisation

I have ordered books and I’m not kidding I’ve reached out to them for the past 3 MONTHS! phones call, emails and live messages all of them are useless and still have no books and they have happily taken my money. Absolutely awful. I still want my money back.

Pitiful. Transaction made on the 31st of May for my son’s learning materials. Still waiting…now for a partial refund for two books out of three unreceived. It seems the website is still active and able to take money for purchases after going into possible collapse. Save yourself the hassle and take your custom elsewhere!

Would give no stars if it was option DO NOT use this company I’m still waiting on an order from 8 weeks ago when I emailed the company never heard anything back I eventually rang and left a message, they are 1.6 million in debt and have gone into receivership but will still take your money knowing they will not fulfill the order.

I haven’t received my book since 5 months now, their customer care is always not working

If I have less than a star, I would give it. They failed to deliver a book for over 2 months: no apology or explanation. After poking them 10 times, they send me a mail about being a creditor, another ridiculous process to get my money back, No explanation of how that thing will work. So, my 154$ was wasted on this drama, don't even know when I will get back the money. It was an academic book, I had to spend money again.

Even Facebook marketplace is more reliable than Booktopia

I have purchased from Booktopia 18 times between 2015 and 2024, and most of my experiences with them have been great. Books were usually shipped within two days, arriving well packaged with no faults. I did receive two paperback books with minor defects to their spines last year, but they were still readable. It seems that until now, I had good luck, after reading other reviews.

I purchased three books on April 28th, 2024. Two were listed as “Arriving June 15-19.” This was a long wait, but I could not find the book I wanted the most elsewhere, so I didn’t mind. The third book was shipped the next day and arrived without any problems.

I purchased another two books in May, which were both “In stock.” One arrived within a week, and the second still hadn’t been shipped after three weeks. Looking on the Booktopia website while waiting for my first order’s arrival time to get closer, I saw that both of the original books had been pushed back to July and then August, which I was never informed about. This confused me, so I sent an email to ask when I could expect to receive my books. I never heard back.

I received the second book from my second order within days of sending the email. I then sent another email to request to cancel the first order and receive a refund, but I never had a response, so I cancelled my order through the Booktopia website two weeks ago and have still not had any response at all.

When I heard that Booktopia had entered voluntary administration and saw that the books I was waiting for had been removed from the website, I realised I would most likely not be receiving the books and opened a dispute with PayPal. I am still waiting to hear about this, but will not be giving up on getting a refund.

My order was $79, but even if I was only owed $1, I would expect to get that back. If a person buys an item, pays for it, and then never receives it, they should be given an immediate refund without having to ask for it. As valued customers, none of us should be having to ask for refunds - they should be given automatically if our orders cannot be fulfilled, and there is no excuse otherwise.

I received an email from the administrators who are working with Booktopia, which said that I am an unsecured creditor. The email says that Booktopia has $12 million dollars worth of unfulfilled orders, but that the customers will not be receiving these orders. Regarding refunds, it says that customers will not be receiving any. The money owed to customers looks to be going towards payment for the administrators.
This is wrong, and I am not sure how they can get away with it as it is theft. Any money owed is money that has been stolen, and the amount should not matter. With the cost of living crisis, it is even more important that everyone gets the refunds they are entitled to.

Some customers have spent thousands of dollars over the years, and are waiting on orders worth $900+. In order to “try’ to get any type of refund (not a full refund), customers are expected to jump through several hoops. Customers are also listed as the lowest priority in terms of what happens to Booktopia’s remaining money. All customers should be seen as valuable. Without customers, there can be no business. Booktopia have not even bothered to issue any apologies or explanations to their customers via email or social media, and have continued taking orders until very recently.

If the business is sold and somehow stays open, they have lost me (and several other people, from what I’m reading) as a customer unless they change their ways and actually start to care about the people who buy from them. This includes being transparent about orders, and not misleading customers into believing that a product is in stock when it is not. This was false advertising.

I am sad to see Booktopia close as they were my favourite Australian bookseller, but their behaviour has made me feel less sad about seeing them go. Hopefully QBD will expand their catalogue and be a good replacement.

I placed an on the 20 June, I sent a message request on the 29th June asking why my order had not shipped. When I ordered nor when I logged in to check the status of my order on the 29th June was there any indication that the items were out of stock. I logged back in today because I still hadn’t heard anything about my order and the items are listed as not being available until the 4th September and this date is only an estimate. No one from Booktopia has contacted me, the items are no longer available to be ordered on their website and I was not given a choice to weather I wanted to wait for the order or not. This isn’t the first issue I have had with this company having ordered an e-text at the start of the year only to have access issues. I will not be ordering from this company ever again.

They won't answer calls. It's been over 10 weeks since placing an order that would 'arrive in 14 days'. Cannot even get in contact to get refund. I used to use frequently to support an Australian company, but the service has just been getting worse and worse.

So I ordered from this site as they were the only ones who had the books I was looking for. I got 4 out 7 books arrived and yet still waiting on 3 books it’s been over a month. I tired emailing no response even calling apparently I’m calling outside of their hours! When they are open! There has been no update yet. I’m not happy as I couldn’t get these books anywhere else in nz.

Update: this company doesn’t let their customers know what happening as I did a Google search into why I haven’t received any notification from them.

Booktopia has gone into liquidation. I’m sorry to see you go. Wishing your staff all the very best.

One star is too generous. They don't respond to emails, they don't respond to phone calls (25 minutes waiting in one call, 28 minutes the next). Simply, they don't respond. Note they were pinged by the ACCC for $6 million for misleading statements about consumer guarantee rights. Say no more.

I like to support Australian business because these days it must be hard to compete with Amazon and Ebay but they need to completely revamp the ordering and delivery process. It takes 30-35 days for your order just to be processed (let alone delivered) and on my last order it was day 44 and order was still unfulfilled and I had not recieved any notification about the delay. I called and requested a refund and they obliged, my money was back in my account in 3 days. I gave an extra star for at least being honest and reputable, but it just takes far too long and the prices aren't low enough to justify the wait.

What happened to your selection of books? Seriously you can’t find the most basic stuff there anymore. Such a pathetic selection now.

I placed an order and still hadn’t received it after 6 weeks. I contacted them and they said it would be another 4 weeks with no consolation. Waiting 10 weeks is an absolute joke and not once did I receive an update or ‘sorry for the delay’ email. Never again.

Ordered a book. No details of delivery times shown on order. Now told that it will take 15-18 days. They are based in Sydney and I live in Sydney. Be very wary of them.

I like that i am supporting a local company but most orders don't ship fast, so expect long delays when you do order a book. But the good thing is they will come very well packed. My current order has been "processing" since June 2nd so I don't expect to get it in a hurry.

Book arrived with corners bent in and page corners damaged, lack of care in ensuring book was properly protected for delivery, expected better from a bookstore. Will be returning to Amazon as surprisingly they put more care into the delivery of books