Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

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JB HiFi launches ebookstore

Australian electronics retailer JB HiFi has launched an ebookstore.

The store, which went live on 22 April, is part of the retailer’s NOW platform, which also sells digital music. Among the local publishers with titles in the ebookstore are HarperCollins, Penguin, Random House, Allen & Unwin, Hachette, Lonely Planet, Pan Macmillan and Text Publishing.

A spokesperson for JB HiFi told Books+Publishing that the retailer has ‘developed [its] own delivery platform and apps’ using Adobe digital rights management (DRM). According to the JB HiFi NOW Books website, ebooks purchased through the store are available in PDF and EPUB formats and can be read on all devices that support Adobe DRM. The ebookstore also has dedicated ereading apps available for Apple and Android devices. To create a JB HiFi NOW Books account customers must have an Australian mobile phone number. 

‘Books are a natural extension of the home entertainment content offering in which our regular customers are already heavily engaged,’ said the spokesperson. ‘The JB HiFi online and digital ecosystems are a perfect environment for us to engage our customers with the rapidly growing ebook category, linking in with our extensive IT hardware offer and popular gift card program.’

JB HiFi already sells a range of ereaders, including Sony and Kobo devices, online and in its stores. The spokesperson said that selling print books is ‘not something [JB HiFi] is considering at this stage’.

 

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Category: Local news