I’m all for competition in the ebooks market, and the Borders.com.au press release that just landed certainly showed promise, with a screaming headline:
BORDERS AUSTRALIA ONLINE LAUNCHES PRICE GUARENTEE (SIC): WE ARE CHEAPER THAN AMAZON.COM – GUARENTEED! (SIC)
Apart from the howling spelling errors in the headline, that’s good, right!? But then I read that they’re talking about p-books – meh.
So the deal is, if you can buy a p-book cheaper on Amazon.com (including shipping), they’ll refund your money +10%. Sounds okay for p-book lovers. But I just can’t see how they’re going to honour that promise. What about Amazon’s “Free shipping on orders over $??” offers? What about their bulk shipping deals – you know – you buy 10 books at a time and pay very little for shipping per book, on average?
Anyway, my interest was fading until:
The announcement came as Borders Australia confirmed it would launch their eBooks platform and eReading device on May 19.
Huzzah! I’m going to try to get down to cover the launch in Sydney (anyone spare a few shekels for the airfare?) Reading the press release (below) one can only assume that the “price guarantee” also covers ebooks. Since ebooks are books too – right? Double huzzah (if there are no strings to that)!! Like the old totally legal US postal address workaround.
Full press release at the Book Bee site.
