Retail Customer Experience: Barnes & Noble Nook Raises Questions About Digital-Only Products
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from Retail Customer Experience, a daily news portal devoted to helping retailers differentiate the shopping experience.
With the recent launch of Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader device, consumers have yet another way to purchase products that are completely digital -- no tangible product to take home. The trend that started for most consumers with the iTunes store has zig-zagged across industries, from music to movies to video games to books.
The $259 Nook was met with skepticism from stock analysts, many of whom downgraded B&N on the announcement. Why, they asked, would a bookseller want to create a device that encourages shoppers to stay out of the bookstore?
"We've addressed that from the get-go," said Douglas Gottlieb, vice president of digital products for Barnes & Noble. He said the Nook is far more than just a way to download and read books, but also a way to interact with the in-store environment. "Nook and the store experience go incredibly well together."
For instance, walk into a B&N location carrying your Nook and you'll automatically be connected to the free wireless network. And while you're in the store, you have access to complete book browsing -- every book for which a digital version exists suddenly becomes available on your device for as long as you're in the store.
Mr. Gottlieb also said there is exclusive content on the way for Nook owners, but couldn't get specific, saying only that "some full titles, all sorts of really interesting things" are on the way.
According to research by Forrester, three million e-book readers will be purchased in the United States this year and twice that many will be bought in 2010.
Discussion Questions: What do you think of Barnes & Noble's release of an e-reader? How serious a challenge does the move to digital formats pose for print books and Barnes & Noble's store-based model? Do you see a benefit to Barnes & Noble incorporating this digital technology into its stores?