Hive.co.uk - an online bookshop Reviews 

Don't buy ebooks from them. It's just a licence to open it in a terrible Adobe application. Doesn't work on most e-readers, so are essentially useless.

Can't open them on any actual eBook reader. Also refuse to give a refund and point to the smallprint.

A shame, because I'd bought paper books from them with no issues. Probably won't do that again.

Dont send a return back if no longer need, as they just dont refund you, sent back via tracked and they dont acknowledge that they have had it back, be warned

Ordered the book. Paid for a digital edition. Nothing! Just got a notification that I had to open various Adobe accounts to view the book. I did all that. Nothing. Spent about 2 hours trying. Contacted them. Gave them an order number as requested. No response. Waste of time and money.

Scam. No books just links to Adobe.

I ordered a cook book and got a hardback novel. There's no dispatch note or invoice included in the parcel so it's unclear where the process has gone wrong. I've emailed customerservice@hive to see if I get a response. I've not used this company before so hoping it can be remedied.
UPDATE: Customer service have replied very quickly and I've been offered a refund.

Looking for DVDs of the Sicilian detective series, Montalbano,all I could find were episodes we already had. Then I discovered Hive- brilliant. I could order all I wanted; I found the website easy to use. The prices were very reasonable and the discs arrived very quickly. As a first time customer, I will be returning to Hive and thoroughly recommend them

The book never came or was even dispatched

Ebooks are unusable, complete waste of time

Ordered a board game having never heard of Hive - arrived super fast, well packaged and at a great price.

Several hours of attempting to download an ebook later.. I'm down £15, and instead of being glad of supporting local businesses wish I'd just bought on Amazon after all.
The terrible app/ Adobe account hasn't even lete download on pc, let alone their one star android app

Beware Ebook buyers
The system may work but try to find the full instructions before buying to make sure they can work for you.
I stupidly saw that they supported the epub format so thought it would be ok.
Only after purchasing a book was I sent proper instructions.
In summary, you have to install some Adobe software and make an account with Adobe and verify it (multiple times it seemed to me). You then have to use a PC (or presumably Mac) with the Adobe software to download the book to your PC (I had to download it separately then try to load it in). You then have to install an appropriate ebook reader on your phone\tablet\reader that supports Adobe and register that with Adobe (they recommend 2 apps to chose from). And then you may be able to read your book on your phone.
In my case the instructions were slightly wrong, such as missing that you needed to specify a certain file type. The Adobe reader on my phone also didn't look very good.
But most importantly, I kept getting an error from the software every time I tried to load the book into Adobe. Three or more hours wasted and still no book to read. Not good enough. I wanted to support local but I'd have been better justing posting the money I wasted directly to a local bookshop.
Update 2 days later. I finally got the book onto my PC. But then you have to connect your ereader/phone to the PC for it to copy across. (E.G. Adobe does not use the cloud to transfer books between your registered devices). Of course, the Adobe software does not recognise my android phone. There is a link to a webpage, to show supported devices, but that goes to a broken web page.
So I can't get the book onto my phone to read it.
In summary, if you want to read books on a PC and are happy to have to faff installing poor software from Adobe, and are lucky; maybe this is the place for you to get ebook. For the other 99% of us, I would suggest stay away.

Really impressed with my recent purchase. Good quality and well packaged and super fast delivery.
Really happy to recommend and will buy from again!

Purchased two audio books today (Kay’s Anatomy and Ingenious Inventions) great price as on an offer, downloaded fine to my iPhone - kids already listened this evening. Perfect products and service for what I needed.

I had a follow up question about an ebook I’d bought too and the lady I spoke today (3 March ) was fantastically helpful.

I don’t understand claim to understand how he technical terminology in these negative reviews but for what I needed today it’s been spot on.

As some others have mentioned I would urge to never buy an ebook from Hive. It comes almost impossible to open anywhere apart from a computer. In the instructions it tells you to download Adobe Digital Editions and that you can then transfer it to other tablet readers. It doesn't tell you that Adobe is not really functional, has a one star rating and is impossible to use on an iPad. So I can only read my book on a laptop and the file is impossible to use anywhere else. When you email them you get a generic answer showing no human has read it. This whole experience has put me off the site even though I've bought several real books from them in the past.

As I found out too late, they say "eBooks can only be purchased with a UK issued credit card and all our eBooks are DRM protected" That means that when you buy an ebook, you can't just put it on your phone or remarkable or computer of your liking, you have to use a particular app that checks your licence key for reading the book you thought you owned. It's a scummy practice, no better than what Amazon does. They say it's "at the publisher’s request" but they sell books that you can get DRM-free at Bloomsbury, they even sell public domain books like Charles Dickens which they add DRM to! You'd think an ethically minded bookshop would rise above such petty nastiness.

But at least you can donate some money to a local bookshop.

I can see that there are quite a lot of bad reviews here but they mostly seem to relate to e books which I do not use so I can't comment on that. However for ordering books I have always found Hive to be quick in sending and everything arrives in perfect condition. Prices are competitive and senior citizens can get 10% off which is very welcome. Packaging was plastic free, aside from the tape on the box.

Shocking Customer Services. Do not purchase Hive

Don't buy an ebook from them if you have a Kindle. Their eBooks are not compatible with Kindles though you will not find this stated anywhere on a page featuring the book you want to buy. Neither are you warned before check-out. You have to dig into their site to find the page which gives you this information. I bought an ebook last night and followed the instructions to download it and transfer it to my device only to find at that late stage that my device is not supported. I wasted about an hour trying to work out how to download it and make it readable. Apparently, I can't have a refund as I have downloaded the book. The fact that I was mislead (the page I downloaded it from said it was in e-pub or pdf format, both of which my Kindle can read) seems unimportant.

I always try to avoid buying from Amazon if I can but the Kindle is the best e-reader so that's what I got. I've bought epubs from other sites and have been able to read them.

It was all a waste of £5.50. In future, I'll just buy from Amazon - it's so much easier.

I have previously bought a physical book from them and it was all fine.

Unfortunately, after a number of unsatisfactory replies to my emails, I sent Hive my final email and thought it important to post a review, to ensure future Remarkable customers avoid experiencing the same.

Dear [Customer Service Team / Tanya],

I’m reaching out to express my concerns regarding my recent purchase, which, despite following your instructions, I am unable to access on my device. I was simply attempting to read an eBook as advertised and purchased in good faith. Nowhere on your website is it mentioned that ‘Remarkable’ tablets are incompatible with your eBooks, which feels misleading to customers.

This lack of transparency in product compatibility verges on misrepresentation, and the absence of a refund option adds to the frustration. I strongly suggest updating your FAQ and product descriptions to clearly warn future customers about this limitation relating specifically to Remarkable tablets.

As a result, I won’t be making further purchases through Hive, and I’ll advise others who use Remarkable tablets to avoid encountering this issue. Clear communication could have avoided this situation, and I hope you consider this feedback to improve customer experiences going forward.

Sincerely,

Sara

Recently used them as a first time buyer. Had heard if the company but never had any other references. I purchased because I was looking for an item and I prefer not to pay amazon and it was £5 cheaper here than amazon. It's just arrived and I am very satisfied. Packed well, shipped quickly, and below amazon pricing. What more could you ask for?