Reader’s Feast, an independent bookstore in Melbourne, Australia, is now demonstrating and selling e-book readers.
The indie isn’t selling Kindles which are not available in Australia, or Sony e-readers, which are. They carry the Bookeen Cybook, iRex iLiad and the HanLin V3 in store. They’ll demo instore and sell you your brand new Reader over the counter.
Strangely, there’s no prominent mention of this on the Reader’s Feast site and though they have an online bookstore, I can’t find anywhere to buy e-books! Without this component, I’m left wondering where the long-term benefit is for the store…it’s like video rental places selling DVD players but only maintaining VHS titles.
I’m guessing Reader’s Feast must have plans in the works to sell e-books to their newly tech-reading customers. Once that happens, it seems like a great model for an indie e-commerce venture…’til then, it seems like teaching a person to fish and then forcing them to find their own lakes and rivers.
Thanks to Mobile Read for the link.
