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Why the W H Smith Kobo deal kind of makes sense
October 13, 2011 | 9:51 am
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By Paul Biba
That’s the title of an article in FUTUReBOOK today. Talking about the new deal between Kobo and W H Smith for the latter to sell Kobo ereaders:
It comes hot on the heels of Kobo’s French deal with Fnac. And while I am pleased that WHS is finally waking up to the e-book market, the arrangement brings with it clear dangers. WHS was in a difficult position. It’s e-book website hadn’t evolved and compared with that of Amazon, and even Waterstone’s, looked like something designed in the 1990s. In fact even today, it’s an unattractive proposition until you get through to the Kobo store (compare it for instance with the interface that Canada’s Indigo offers, ok so Indigo created Kobo but still, you get the picture).
What is interesting is that we now have two distinct strategies, the Waterstone’s and Barnes & Noble route of developing their own e-readers, or the Fnac/WHS partnership route.
Remind you of anything? In the mid 1990s faced with the growing threat of a burgeoning new delivery system for books, traditional booksellers either tried to develop their own e-commerce solutions (Barnes & Noble, and Ottakar’s), bought them (WHS via the Internet Bookshop) or went into partnership with Amazon (Waterstone’s and Borders). One former Waterstone’s executive told me years later that they just didn’t want to be distracted from the core business by what everyone was saying at the time would only be a minor market shift.
More in the article.
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Comments:
Delighted to see Kobo and WH Smith formalising their relationship a bit more! They are natural allies and each partner brings substance to any deal. Kobo has been sold in WH Smith stores for some time but now the Touch has arrived. Pricing is strongly competitive: the Kobo WiFi for £90 and the Kobo Touch for £110.
Previously, Kobo had said they would open UK, German and French stores this fall and it’s great to see them making good on the promise, not only delivering localised content but established retail partners as well. That’s the way they will organically grow the brand and the business globally.
There is no question these are good deals for Kobo.
Or that the equivalent deals Txtr and Bluefire are signing wth *their* partners are good for them.
What isn’t clear is how good those deals will look like in the long haul.
Will the retailers draw enough of an ebook customer base (and revenue) to satisfy both partners and offset pbook dropoff sales?
Will the retailers stick with the partner for the long haul or only until they learn the ropes of digital retailing?
Conversely, might not Kobo decide at some point that they are firmly enough planted in a given market not to need a partner? Or that the partner is more of a liability than an asset?
Half a loaf is better than no bread but in business partnerships rarely last forever.
I like the international direction that Kobo is taking, especially as we need a strong competitor to Amazon, and anything that improves WHSmith’s anemic and overpriced ebook store is a good idea. However, on a Kobo related note, do their readers still have that annoying lag between chapters? It’s the only thing that has kept me away from buying Kobo books; even their iPad app had the chapter-lag. Can anyone answer me this one? Is it still there?