Borders minus Amazon

I received an email from Border's today, which happens a couple of times a week due to their various newsletters. Today's was different; it touted their new online store.

Border's store used to be basically an Amazon sub-link, and they're branching out to handle their own e-commerce (for better or for worse). The reviews that I've read haven't been great, but I didn't take a look for myself until this afternoon's email.


I can understand some of the complaints about the experience. Border's is trying a "virtual bookshelf," where in theory you can shop like you do at the store. It doesn't exactly work, in that it doesn't feel at all like shopping at a Border's brick-and-mortar, but I'd like to jump to their defense-- at least they're trying something different. Relaunching a site that essentially looks exactly like the Amazon page they already had wouldn't generate much interest. At the very least they're trying to bring a fuller experience to an e-tailer site.

The site-- and perhaps because of this launch-- is slow. The demo video they want you to watch is the slowest of all, and the video itself is a bit exasperating if you're even the littlest bit tech-savvy. It's clearly targeted to the kind of person who doesn't do much of their shopping online; anyone who has would glean nothing new from the video.

To tell you the truth, this site hits right between two marks: it's not Amazon, and it's not a Border's store. If I wanted to browse casually, I would still go to the physical store because the experience has not been replicated here. If, on the other hand, I was looking for a specific book and I wanted to buy it cheaply, I would most likely still go to Amazon.

Check it out and let me know what you think. Does Borders.com fulfill some kind of niche that could make it work?