Its now February and still we find Asda are continuing to turn up the discount screw on books.
This weekend we visited their store in Bristol and found many shelves filled with the £1 'b format' offers we previously covered, but now also some special £3 large format offers and one rack of £8 hardbacks. Has anybody done the maths on just how many ‘offers’ Asda has today on books and just how many units this adds up to?
The interesting question someone should be asking is, who is merchandising and supplying this depth and range of offer across the Asda estate and whether it is just a seasonal offer, or part of a more permanent one?
Today the UK press is covering Asda’s ereader offer, which is a bit strange given they don’t have an ebook offer – yet. The reader however will turn heads not because of its quality, but due to its price ticket of just £52.
The View Quest Colour eBook Reader or Mediabox 5" Media Tablet with eBook, Music and Video playback is described as,
the perfect travel companion. You can play music and videos with its built in speakers and a 5" widescreen, read eBooks in portrait or landscape mode, store and view photos and images and also has a built in voice recorder. The tablet is backlit for night time reading, and has a power saving mode to reduce eye strain and improve battery life.
We found many available from all sorts of sites but could not get one for less than £99. They claim it is fully compatible with Adobe ACS4 DRM, so on the face of it and despite its screen, its cheap.
So the question is where ASDA is going on books and the strategy of the other UK supermarkets, on what is becoming a high profile market opportunity?
