The Digital Reader

From the press release:

Borders Australia online (borders.com.au) announced today a price guarantee that ensures Australians will always buy books cheaper online than on Amazon.com.

The Borders Australia online price guarantee, which will commence from today (6 May 2010), signals a new era in the way Australian book sellers compete in the global online market.

Borders Australia are confident that they can get the book you want cheaper than the cost of purchasing and shipping the book through Amazon.com. To this end they are willing to backup this promise with the guarantee that if you find a book cheaper on Amazon.com (including purchasing and freight costs) then Borders Australia will refund the difference plus 10% to your credit card (or other payment method).

Do you know what I was thinking? If I were in Australia, I’d hold Borders to this guarantee for ebook prices. After all, they’re books, aren’t they?

In the same press release, Borders Australia has announced they would launch their eBooks platform and e-reader on May 19. I probably should have guessed that this would happen.  Borders Australia are owned by REDgroup retail, who also own the NZ chain Whitcoulls(and 3 others, actually). You might recall that Whitcoulls announced that they would carry the Kobo e-reader a few weeks ago. It makes sense that they would carry the same e-reader in both stores.