Walmart has recently introduced Kobo e-readers in 1,000 of their retail locations in the United States and they are selling audiobook and ebook gift cards inside 3,500 different stores. One thing that is being underreported is that Walmart has a great price match policy when it comes to digital content.
If you see an eBook or audiobook that’s lower priced than the Walmart ebooks site, you can contact Walmart eBooks’s customer care team, and they will price match the item for you before you proceed with the checkout process. Meanwhile if you purchased an ebook or audiobook and find out within 30 days that the price has dropped, you can contact Walmart eBooks customer care to adjust the price and give you a partial refund or store credit.
When you are shopping at one of the 3,500 stores that sell audiobook or ebook gift cards you can price match those too, but they need to price matched in the store, they cannot be price matched once you pay for them.
Kobo also has a price matching system for audiobooks and ebooks that many people are blissfully unaware of. Customers from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom who buy digital content and find a lower price, can ask Kobo to credit them the difference, plus 10% of their original purchase price.
In order to qualify for the price match you have to file your claim within 7 days of purchasing it and the e-book has to have the same ISBN number. This might be a little tricky with Kindle e-books, because they tend to have ASIN numbers, which are different from the standard ISBN. I have heard from many people that Kobo does honor the “for Kindle” price. Additionally, if you want to get the price match, the digital bookstore that is offering it for a cheaper price has to be in your home country. You cannot buy something from the Australian Kobo store and say the US price is cheaper.
Amazon does not have a price match system for Kindle Books and neither does Barnes and Noble. Apple iBooks, Google Books, and many other online retailers also do not price match their competition. Suffice to say Walmart has the best price matching system in the entire world when it comes to audiobook and ebook sales.
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.
