Borders announced yesterday the launch of their new Borders branded eBook store powered by the Kobo eReading service. The new eBook store comes populated with more than 1.5 million titles including thousands of free titles as well as support for a variety of eReading formats (such as ePub, mobile, and PDF).
Shoppers will also be able to take advantage of Border’s Rewards loyalty program which includes benefits such as special gift cards, free shipping on certain items, exclusive offers on popular digital series, double Borders Bucks incentives on the purchase of eReaders, etc.
Borders also announced the availability of new eReading apps for BlackBerry and Android devices powered by Kobo. On the BlackBerry front, owners of the Curve, Tour 9630, and Bold will now be able to browse, purchase, and read eBooks directly on their smartphones (of course the same goes to all Android phones with the new app).
With the launch of the new eBook store, Borders aims at capturing approximately 17 percent of the eBook market by July 2011. With competition from Amazon, Apple, Sony, and several other smaller players, it’ll be interesting to see if Borders can actually pull this market share grab by next summer.
