What is Savings Optimizer?
How does Savings Optimizer work?
What about item format and condition?
How are seller ratings factored?
What is Savings Optimizer?
When you click to use it, the Alibris Savings Optimizer looks at what you have in your Shopping Cart and checks to see whether you are getting the best overall deal, including item price and shipping costs. It works for books, movies, music —you name it. Savings Optimizer does not suggest rental items at this time, however.
How does Savings Optimizer work?
It's easy!
- Pick & click: Simply pick the items you want to buy, add them to your cart, and then click the link to optimize your savings that appears on your Review and Place Order page as you're checking out.
NOTE: You have to have more than one item in your cart to run Savings Optimizer, and we currently don't support optimizing more than 25 products.
- Be general or specific: You can then specify whether you want the Savings Optimizer to search only a selected format or if you want the item in any format. You can even restrict the search to only copies that are of the same edition. Learn more about setting format and condition preferences.
- View optimized results: The Savings Optimizer will try to find the best-priced combination of items based on the preferences you set. We search through thousands of sellers and millions of titles to make sure you're getting the best price, quality, and shipping combination possible.
If we find you a better deal, select the Savings Optimizer bundle and we'll automatically replace the items you originally selected with the new items.
If we can't find a better deal, you can check out assured that you already found the lowest price, including shipping, that is available today. Alternatively, you can adjust your preference settings and try again.
What about item format and condition?
If you're purchasing video or music, you probably want to keep the same format. For instance, if you have a paperback book and a music CD in your cart, if you tell Savings Optimizer to search the same format, it will return only the best result for other paperback copies of the book title and CDs of your music selection. If you choose to find any format, Savings Optimizer will include hardcover and audio books in its search and will look for any item matching the music title, including audio tape, LP, and other formats.
Same-edition searches will return only items that are that exact edition; therefore, items of a different format or with a different cover or publication date will not be evaluated.
TIP FOR YOU: Textbook buyers may find this particularly useful as you often want only a very specific copy of the book that is assigned for your course. You can also optionally choose to exclude international editions.
You can also be general or specific about the condition of the items you want.
How are seller ratings factored?
Savings Optimizer only searches sellers with four-star and five-star seller ratings, so you can rest assured that your order is coming from our most reliable sellers. There isn't a way to have Savings Optimizer consider sellers with lower seller ratings.
