The Bookseller is
reporting this morning that Audible, Amazon's audiobook distributor and retailer, has launched a new gifting option:
Audible has launched a gifting service for the first time, allowing customers to purchase content and membership deals as gifts for others.
The Amazon-owned audiobook service said the service has been begun to capitalise on Christmas demand for gifting options.
Customers will have the option of using the buying a specific title, and sending a code to the recipient to allow them to download it, or buying a gift membership of three, six of 12 month's subscription to the Audible.
This is good news, but is it actually new news?
I have checked the relevant FAQ pages in the Help section and it appears that Audible UK has offered these gifting since at least 2011. I can also confirm, based on when Audible.com's FAQ was updated, that the site has had the gifting options mentioned above since at least February of this year.
Sorry that I cannot be more specific, but I don't use Audible and I'm not familiar with all of the parts of the service.
At this point it looks like The Bookseller got it wrong, but if there is a story I would like to report on it. Does anyone know if Audible launched a new gifting option, or is this a non-story?
Perhaps they changed something about it to make it news I don’t know, but gifting is definitely not new. I got an audiobook from Audible as a gift from a friend 4/28/2008 and sent a couple back then too.
Audible.com has had a gift center for years. audible.co.uk just got a gift centernow. It is news for the UK site.
It’s been there forever. But today they put it in the promo section so maybe that’s why The Bookseller reported it as “new.”