eBook kiosks have shown up in Japan, China, and elsewhere in the world, are still on the horizon in the US market, and as of this month the first one has launched in Australia.
Mary Ryan’s, a franchise bookstore chain with 7 locations across Australia, has recently installed a new ebook kiosk in one of their stores in Brisbane.
Bill Concannon, the CEO of Mary Ryan’s, says that the kiosk was installed less than a fortnight ago. He believes that readers expect retailers to be up with technology: “They see a book on the New York Times bestseller list and they expect us to have it here the next day”.
As you can see at right, the kiosk is custom built and based around an iPad. Customers can use the iPad to visit Mary Ryan’s ebookstore, which is based on the Booki.sh platform. This is a cloud based ebook service native to Australia, and you might recall that OverDrive bought it in March 2012.
Concannon plans to install ebook kiosks at the six other Mary Ryan’s bookstores in the near future. He’s also planning to equip sales clerks with iPad Minis which the staff can use to order books for customers. ”It’s not going to save book shops or anything but you need to be able to demonstrate to your customers that you are up to date with what’s happening in the wider world,” Mr Concannon says.
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As an Aussie, just had to comment. Really don’t think this will work here.
1st book I looked at was Love is a Canoe by Ben Schrank. It’s $29.99 on Mary Ryan but $12.99 on Amazon – bit of a rip off?
Also, it’s got experimental support for Kindle 3 because it needs a web browser. No thanks.
Love or hate Amazon, their customer experience is fantastic. THIS CAN’T match it.
Yeah, that’s likely a result of Booki.sh being based in Australia and having to deal with Australian publishers. You guys get hosed on book prices down there.
I don’t get it. How does that even work? Do you bring in your Kindle or iPad … and do what? Why use that instead of, you know, using the *native built-in downloading ability of the device itself*?
I’m not sure why this would be preferable, either. Why would someone come to a store, log in t their account, and then overpay for an ebook? Why not just use your smartphone, tablet, or ereader?
They have an instore cafe and a bookclub that meets in the store with discounts. So I’m guessing they are trying to attract that crowd.
From looking at their supported devices, ereaders don’t work with the exception of experimental support for Kindle 3 web browsing.
All my friends who are serious readers use wifi kindles so I guess we aren’t the target customer with this.