After seeing so many unfavourable reviews for firstandsecond, I thought I would also chip in my experiences for the site. I have till date purchased five books through that site and I would say my experiences have not been particularly pleasant but not completely hopeless either. The books that I ordered were the ones that were not at all available in market. Take for example, spanish novels. You wouldn’t find them anywhere except for fabmall.com maybe. And the had written that the book will be delivered in 24-29 days. After 23 days I felt extremely frustrated and possibly forgot that they had mentioned the book delivery time as 24-29 days and I catually received the book within the mentioned duration. But in other cases they have taken more time than mentioned. But delivered the book nevertheless.
One thing we must not forget is that they are probably the only online bookstore who list books from across the world and charge very nominal shipping charges. Another time I had ordered a technical book which I culd not find in any of the bookstores. The publishers had stopped publishing the book in India. I saw the book listed on firstandsecond and immediately ordered it. I did not have much hope of actually getting the book. Even Gangaram’s in Bangalore (which is agood store for IT books) had shown me the thumb. But after maybe more than a month and a half of waiting I actually received the book from firstandsecond.
Another thing I hate about them is they have no listed phone number on their site. That is definitely very frustrating. On the whole I would say that even though my experiences of buying books from them have been frustrating but they have never turned me completely down.
I shudder at the thought of having no firstandsecond at all. I would rather bear with their lousy service rather than not having them at all.