Actual Open Trolley does not look like this.
Okay, like, I was surprised some people didn’t know what Open Trolley was but then I realized that I haven’t actually told what it was specifically except in real life to people.
I call it my alternate universe Amazon.
WHY?
Because it’s basically got all the books online except that IT IS IN SGD AND THE SHIPPING IS LOCAAAAAL! ARRGH. Yes! You know those hard to get books that you wanna buy in the US/elsewhere because it’s not stocked at Kinokuniya/Borders/Popular/etc?
It’s here.
It’s simple to use too and oh I did use the delivery service and the pick up service before.
For the delivery service, the books are packed into a box and it’s like a cute little package OF BOOKS.
Which is duh, because I ordered that.
And it’s so huggable and it’s like Christmas, only not because you’d pay for it and the postman isn’t some fat jolly dude with a beard. He’s just some tired fat dude with a hat (Mario???). So anyway, yeah. They pack your books pretty well and you open up the box and go, “OH GASP! I love you Open Trolley, I love you!” and sleep with the box of books on your bed.
Well, you might not but you could.
I didn’t do that.
Really.
ANYWAY! For the pick up point, it was pretty easy too, it’s at The Toy Outpost at Plaza Singapura (Dhoby Ghaut mrt). You might find it odd but imagine it like a trading post and if you did do this method, remember to print out your order form/receipt and just go straight to the cashier counter. They’ve actually got a list of people collecting whichever books.
In the words of Monopoly:
Pass go and collect $2.
Okay, in Monopoly here, it’s $200 but whatever, you get what I mean. If you do a self pick up in the option when you are buying it online, you get a $2 refund. But if you’re too busy or lazy to get to town or whatever, just choose the delivery option. And it’s most worth it if you bought more than one book if you’re choosing delivery.
Oh and if you go via the pick up route, PLEASE bring your own plastic bag or book bag, the Toy Outpost only helps in passing the book to you. Save the Earth and all that. Also, wait for their sms/email notification before you can collect your book.
For both of the methods, there’s a minimum standard time before your book arrives but heck that, if you’re ordering online you should know it’s not gonna appear on your doorstep the next day like how you’d do it in a real store.
Open Trolley is best for those hard to find comics, books and even audio books. The prices vary and sometimes it might be more expensive than the real stores although, it’s not too much variation. Just a few dollars or so and generally said books are sold out or not stocked in the real stores any more.
At times you might see the option for the same book but in different prices. If you see something like, “library edition”, it means that the book is HARDCORE.
Literally.
Library edition books or audio books are specially bound to withstand the use of many people so unless you have a hundred people in your house or you really, really want to keep that favourite book forever, you don’t have to choose the library edition.
They’re just versions with harder/spine fixed casings (for audio cds) or bindings. That’s why those versions tend to be multitudes more expensive than the normal version. It might look similar but it’s not.
So anyway, before you look to Amazon, just check out Open Trolley here and they might actually have the books you want!
