Book Order #5 of 7 for 2026

Book Haul #2 of 7 for 2026

Two orders with worthing.in, two orders with bookchor.com, one order with meesho.com… At first glance, it will seem that things are going crazy, but these were just for my birthday. On my birthday 29th July, I wanted to gift myself a mini library. This book haul post is a bit too late, but better late then never.

So, I ordered Harry Potter box set.

I’ve been looking for a nice offer on preloved bookstores, but I never get it. The price is either too high or the offer is grabbed before I could. So, I relented. I really really wanted this set and I went for a new one. It was also an experiment with meesho, because I have NEVER ordered from meesho before. It was pricey, sure, but I got a good deal.

Total books: 7

Original Price: Rs 738

Discount 1: Rs 100 (First-time Buyer Discount)

Discount 2: Rs 74 (Online Payment Discount)

Final Price: Rs 564

Price Per Book: 80.57

Timeline

4-July-2026: Order placed

5-July-2026: Order dispatched from Faridabad, Haryana.

6-July-2026: In two days, the parcel is still circling from one place to another in Haryana. Also, the product is no longer showing on meesho. I don’t have a good feeling about this.

7-July-2026: Looks like the parcel has arrived in Nagpur :O

8-July-2026: The parcel has arrived in ma city, there one DPP right in my neighbourhood. I even got a message that the agent is out for delivery. But 5 hours later, the parcel hasn’t reached me yet. 

8-July-2026 Afternoon: Order arrived.

Uff Allah!

The excitement is beyond description.

 

Promised vs Real

The Parcel? Looks too small compared to my expectations. 

First Glimpse? 

Up close, the boxset looks like this:

Bookmarks? None, none were promised.

In pictures, the books and the box looked larger. IRL, it was just out regular A-format books. This was supposed to be new so the condition looks as expected. 

My First Meesho Experience

I have heard things about meesho, unpleasant things, but my sister often orders from here and she has never been duped. It was an experiment that I did hesitantly and was pleasantly surprised until I opened book 7.

All the other books, I checked for print, pages, binding; looked okay. Book 7 was… Take a look yourself.

Keep, Return or Exchange

For about half an hour, I contemplated, even went through all the steps of requesting an exchange. On last page, it said:

product out of stock, request a return.

Hmmm…

It made me think again.

1. 6 out of 7 books are okay, the last one has torn pages, double-printing on several pages, loose binding. Why return all?
2. Is it worth returning? I’ll lose all the other good condition books as well?
3. I don’t know how return works with meesho. Will I get my money back or not? I’ve said this before: I’ve heard unpleasant things about meesho.
4. I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted this bookset, that’s why we went for a cheap copy, right? Let’s talk about that for a minute.

Why This Bookset?

At Rs 738 price, I’m almost certainly getting an unauthorized reprint; I knew, before ordering. This set is no way original or preowned as claimed on the seller’s listing. I needed that in my library and I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on books that I can easily read online. If I printed the Harry Potter book at home and got it book-bound, it would have cost me almsot the same. Go ahead, judge me for buying non-original books.

My bookshelf strategy is pretty clear.  I’m building a large, readable library without burning a hole in my wallet. Think of it this way:I think about price per novel and value per page for every book I purchase, and that same philosophy fits here too: maximize the amount of good reading I can own within a budget. I’m not chasing pristine collector’s editions or even just regular editions. When I try to do that (getting good edition collection for a particular series/author), I still fail miserably because no online seller can be trusted. So, why spend a lot of money on buying old, pirated books when I can get a new, slightly low-quality, still-pirated books?

Of course, the same rule doesn’t apply to all books. I’ll talk about that in some other post. Now is not the time. We’re doing haul, not dissecting book purchasing choices.

Back to the big question: Keep, Return or Exchange?

I spoke to my brother. He said, “we couldn’t possibly get it so cheap, even if pirated. Just think that bachon ne phad di hai.” What he said makes sense, kids at our home do damage books if they get their hands on my stock, so…

WE ARE KEEPING IT.

Final Thoughts

I have one more book order with meesho, two books, I’ll want to check how that is. On top of that, I have a few four Urdu books combos in wishlist. The good part is, seller of those Urdu book combos is marked as “meesho trusted”, so… I can give it a try. The price went up the moment I placed the first order, so I’m going to keep an eye on these until I get an offer I can’t resist. 

I did NOT expect the books to come on time and scheduled the post for 19-July-2026, even though I received the book on 8-July-2026. I’m not changing the dates now. 

Until next time, happy reading!