The arrival of the holiday shopping season is certainly escalating the e-book wars. Today, Amazon released data showing rapid Kindle sales and Barnes and Noble is expected to release a color version of the Nook. Borders is jumping into the mix by announcing a number of deals on its assortment of e-readers in time for the holiday shopping season. For the next week, Borders is offering free shipping on online eReader orders, a $25 gift card, free eBooks, 20 percent off device accessories and more incentives for shoppers to choose Borders for the e-book gifts.
So if you purchase the Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet, which costs about $299.99, you will receive a $25 Borders gift card. Borders is also knocking $30 off the Velocity Micro Cruz Reader with WiFi to bring the price down to $169.99. The Kobo eReader, which lists for $129.99, is now priced at $99.99; and the Aluratek Libre is now $99.99 through Nov. 15.
Borders is also throwing in five free eBooks with any pre-order of the Kobo Wireless eReader ($139.99) and offering a Sony Reader cover with built-in light with the purchase of any Sony device. The company will be knocking off 20 percent on all eReader accessories with the purchase of any e-book device.
It’s a competitive market, and Borders doesn’t nearly have the share that Amazon does. Price cuts can be a sales driver during the holiday time, and these sort of deals are necessary to compete with the big guys. And Borders has previously used price cuts on readers to draw traffic and sales. Earlier this year, Borders launched a branded eBook store and released the BlackBerry, Android, iPad and iPhone eReading applications, all powered by Kobo.
And as more and more players enter the market, prices will continue to drop. I think we can expect more price-cuts, features and deals coming from all e-book distributors over the next few months.