Waterstone’s has announced that it will launch its own e-reader to compete with Amazon’s Kindle next year. James Daunt announced the move on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours.
Waterstones to compete with the Kindle
The rise of ebooks, and the actual selling of physical books online, has given bricks-and-mortar bookshops the same challenges that iTunes posed for high street CD-sellers who have now been decimated. In the same way the bookselling business is undergoing dramatic restructuring. Borders has gone, and so too has Books etc.
Inevitably Waterstone’s is struggling to keep up with Amazon. It was recently sold by the HMV Group to the Russian billionaire businessman Alexander Mamut who recruited Daunt to turn the chain around.
Daunt is no doubt looking closely at the experience of Barnes & Noble which credits the Nook for its strong sales performance. In the first quarter of this year, sales associated with the Nook (hardware, content and accessories) had jumped 140 per cent to $277m over the corresponding the first quarter in 2010. It predicted that it would sell around $1.8bn in Nook e-books by the end of the financial year.
The US based book retailer partnered with Foxconn, a Taiwanese iPhone manufacturer for production of the hardware.
Barnes and Noble is at least fighting back against Amazon’s growing dominance in both physical and electronic sales. Part of its success is down to linking the e-reader device to its physical stores.
Waterstone’s no doubt has a partnership in mind, with Daunt saying that the project was “well down the planning line” he told Radio 4.
“We in Waterstone’s need to offer you a digital reader which is at least as good, and preferably substantially better, than that of our internet rival, and you will have a much better buying experience purchasing your books through us,” said Daunt.
Free coffee and pastries in Waterstone’s for e-book readers? Something along those lines was hinted out by Daunt. All will be revealed, but with so few bookstores left standing, competition demands that Waterstone’s puts in a good fight. The CD stores have by and large disappeared. It would be a sad day indeed if the book stores followed suit.
Waterstone’s hopes to launch the new project in the first quarter of 2012.
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[...] Barnes and Nobles successfully sells its Nook eReader in the US and the book chain Waterstone’s recently announced that it was also planning to launch its own eBook reader. [...]
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