Barnes and Noble is teaming up with Google to delivery books the same day you order them online. Books will only be shipped to a few key markets, but the intention is to use Manhattan, West Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area as a pilot for an eventual Nationwide rollout.
Google has been running Shopping Express only for only a year and only recently expanded out of California a few months ago. The premise Express is to partner with companies like Costco, Guitar Center, L’Occitane, Smart & Final, Staples, Target, and Walgreens and allow people to get things delivered to their house the same day the order is placed.
Barnes and Noble is betting on a few factors to make their same day book delivery system work. Shopping Express is offering a free six month subscription to get free shipping. Alternatively you can simply pay $4.99 for each shipment, instead of subscribing. Amazon’s same-day service costs $5.99 for members of its Prime program, which also has an annual rate of $99.99.
So what B&N stores are participating in this pilot project? The Union Square store in Manhattan, the Marina del Rey store near Los Angeles and a store on Stevens Creek Boulevard in San Jose. They will all have a dedicated person on site to assist customers in placing online orders for books, toys, games, magazines and other items. Google will collect the orders and hand them to a courier. Barnes & Noble stores have 22,000 to 163,000 titles, depending on the store size.
We live in an age of instant gratification. This is why the eBook industry exploded in the last few years and major publishers trumpet that they account for 21%-28% of their entire revenue stream. It is all too convenient to buy a book on your e-reader, smartphone or tablet and instantly be able to read it. Barnes and Noble is betting that same day deliveries will encourage more people to buy the print edition.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.