Yet another ebook store is closing down and once again Kobo is the beneficiary of all their customer accounts.
Sainsbury is a UK company that has decided to close their Entertainment on Demand business, which includes movies and TV, digital magazines and MP3 music, in addition to ebooks.
Sainsbury is officially closing their ebook store on October 1st, 2016.
Their ebook apps will still work for reading ebooks until November 30th, but users will need to switch over to Kobo beyond that, as accounts will be closed on December 1st.
Sainsbury is expected to send emails to customers by October 25th with instructions on how to transfer accounts to Kobo in order for customers to retain their purchased ebook library.
It’s always a good idea to download your ebooks before the transition to ensure that you have backups in case something goes wrong with the transfer. For the most part Kobo’s transfers work pretty seamlessly but it only works for books they offer. If you happen to have a title from Sainsbury that’s not available at Kobo then the book will be lost after the transfer.
Earlier this year Sainsbury acquired Nook accounts after Barnes and Noble closed their UK ebook store, so now the musical chairs of ebook stores continues as customers will now be sent to Kobo six months later (that didn’t last long).
Kobo has become the proverbial vacuum of the ebook world. Half their business seems to be taking on accounts from other failed ebook stores.