Overstock.com the popular website devoted to deals and surplus items are now in the business of selling eBooks. Rather then form publisher relationships and deal directly with 1st party companies it simply made an agreement with Barnes and Noble.
The new ebook store is rather simple and they seem to be only posting books that have some sort of discount which adheres to the companies core ethos. When you purchase or click on a book you are redirected to the Barnes and Noble official bookstore.
“Barnes & Noble is pleased to become Overstock.com’s exclusive digital bookstore partner, and to continue our relationship selling refurbished NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Color on Overstock.com,” said Jim Hilt, Vice President of eBooks for Barnes & Noble. “The combination of our award-winning portfolio of NOOK products, the Overstock.com online experience, and now access to the largest assortment of eBooks, will make it even easier to help more customers find their next great read.”
So how is Overstock making money on this whole venture? Well B&N runs a commission and affiliates program that allows you to make money by embedding custom codes. So when you purchase a book Overstock would make a few cents on each one purchased. This is a new program that was just rolled out today, so it remains to be seen if Overstock will post any deals of the day in ebook format in the future.
[showhide type=’pressrelease’]
SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Overstock.com Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK), today announced that it has partnered with Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, to sell eBooks through Barnes & Noble. Visitors to Overstock.com will now have access to the digital edition of hardcover and paperback books available on the site through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK Store. To learn more visit www.overstock.com/ebooks .
A link on Overstock.com book product page will take visitors to Barnes & Noble.com’s NOOK Store, the world’s largest bookstore, where they can seamlessly and easily purchase the digital version of the book they have selected. Content downloads lightning-fast, usually in less than 10 seconds over Wi-Fi®. Overstock.com currently carries the NOOK Color™ (Certified Pre-owned) for only $149.00.
“As the number one seller of refurbished NOOK® devices we are pleased to partner with Barnes & Noble to expand our product offering so that our customers have fast, easy access to the breadth of digital content that Barnes & Noble offers,” said Overstock.com President Jonathan Johnson.
“Barnes & Noble is pleased to become Overstock.com’s exclusive digital bookstore partner, and to continue our relationship selling refurbished NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Color on Overstock.com,” said Jim Hilt, Vice President of eBooks for Barnes & Noble. “The combination of our award-winning portfolio of NOOK products, the Overstock.com online experience, and now access to the largest assortment of eBooks, will make it even easier to help more customers find their next great read.”
About Overstock.com
Overstock.com is Your Savings Engine offering brand-name products. The company offers its customers an opportunity to shop for bargains conveniently, while offering its suppliers an alternative inventory distribution channel. Overstock.com, headquartered in Salt Lake City, is a publicly traded company listed on the NASDAQ Global Market System and can be found online at http://www.overstock.com and http://www.o.co. Overstock.com regularly posts information about the company and other related matters on its website under the heading “Investor Relations.”
About Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 704 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, also operates 635 college bookstores serving over 4.6 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through BN.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than two million titles in its NOOK Bookstore™ (www.bn.com/ebooks). Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK® eReading product offering, customers can buy and read digital books and content on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK devices, partner company products, and the most popular mobile and computing devices using free NOOK software[/showhide]
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.
