This week Walmart started selling ebooks and audiobooks in the US, along with Kobo’s current lineup of E Ink ebook readers.
I was looking over the Walmart eBooks Help section and came across an interesting detail about their price matching policy.
As it turns out, Walmart has a favorable price matching policy regarding ebooks and audiobooks purchased through Walmart.
They offer two forms of price matching.
First, you have the option to contact Walmart’s customer care team before purchasing an ebook or audiobook and they’ll match the price of the item before checking out.
They also offer a post-purchase price matching feature that extends for 30 days after purchase. If you find that an ebook or audiobook you bought from Walmart eBooks has dropped in price, you can contact Walmart’s customer support to adjust the price.
Since Walmart’s ebooks are actually sold through Kobo’s website, you would think they would have the same policy, but this is one notable difference between the two.
With Kobo’s price matching you have to buy the item first and then contact support to get a credit added to your account for the price difference, plus they’ll add an extra 10% of the competitor’s price. That’s a nice bonus but Kobo will only price match for 7 days.
Surprisingly Amazon does not offer price matching with Kindle ebooks. They’ll often lower the price if a book is selling for less elsewhere, but there’s no price matching after purchase.
Barnes and Noble doesn’t offer price matching with Nook books either, and neither does Google or Apple.
Oddly enough Walmart has one of the better price matching policies when it comes to ebooks and audiobooks. Granted you don’t get an extra 10% back like with Kobo, but 30 days is a long time.
Nathan do you know if there a list of Walmart stores that actually carry kobo reader’s in stores? Thanks
No, it’s a guessing game, and if you call ahead they’ll probably have no idea what you’re talking about, knowing Walmart. But you can use their website to check stock at nearby stores.
I stopped by my local Walmart yesterday to ask if they had the Kobo. The employee didn’t know what Kobo was and had no clue about the ebooks.
I imagine it’s to keep it in line with Walmart.com’s existing policies for other items. If you click through from the ebook help page to the regular page on Walmart.com’s Price Matching Policy, it lists specific sites it will match. The only ebook retailer is Amazon. Don’t know if that just applies to other items though.
As for the 30 days after, that sounds like it’s only if the price drops on their own site. But it does seem like it’s a refund, rather than Kobo’s store credit.
Interesting. I didn’t interpret it that way initially but I suppose you’re right. They could’ve been more clear with the wording.
Wonder if they’ll match Amazon’s free books?
Kobo already matches most of Amazon’s free ebooks