I don't so much mind about the multiple charges when I buy more than one book at a time - I'm trying to not get so far ahead of myself, at least not with books I have to pay for, and this serves as a good reminder. But the problem with doing every book as a separate transaction is this: Ever see the signs at restaurants saying "Minimum Visa charge $5? My friends who run a restaurant tell me that Visa charges the merchant 40 cents for each transaction, plus some percentage of the total. So if I buy four bargain books for $.99 each, and they all go to my credit card, Visa is going to take maybe $1.71 of that money, and the bookstore gets $2.25. If they let me put it in a shopping cart and buy in one transaction, the bookstore would get $3.45 and Visa would get $0.51.
I'd much rather the profit went to the bookstore, so they can stay in business selling ebooks for me! I think Visa gets quite enough of our cash already.
I would be willing to go through the shopping cart steps instead of just conveniently using the Buy It Now, so that the bookstore can keep all those 40 cent transaction fees. Especially for Borders who is in trouble and who I like and would like to help!