Sainsbury’s Gets Serious About UK eBook Market – Launches 99p Sale
Sainsbury’s, a UK grocery store chain, made their interest in ebooks clear in June of last year when they bought a controlling interest in the social ebookstore Anobii, and today they started making their presence felt.
They’ve just launched a 99p ebook sale. It’s not quite as ambitious as the book price war that Overstock launched here in the US a couple months ago but it should still draw in prospective customers.
Over 100 popular titles in a variety of genres are included in the sale, which will go on until the end of the month. It will consist of a mix of 1-day specials and month-long offers. Some titles, including The Racketeer and several other ebooks by John Grisham, will only be offered as a 1-day sale.
Based on today’s offering (12 mystery and suspense titles) I think Sainsbury’s might be planning to focus on particular genres for each of the one day sales.
Sainsbury’s bought Anobii in June 2012 but it wasn’t until Jan 2013 that they renamed Anobii’s ebookstore to eBooks by Sainsbury’s. The acquisition and rebranding was a smart move on their part because it offers Sainsbury’s a shot at earning a better return on ebook sales than WHSmith or Waterstones, 2 UK bookstore chains that partnered with Kobo and Kindle, respectively. Those chains are earning an affiliate commission, while Sainsbury’s has the potential to earn up to 30% or more of an ebook’s sale price.
Along with Tesco, this is one of the ebookstores to watch in the UK market, IMO.
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