Barnes & Noble Upgrades Its Site; Goes For Booklover, Not Bookbuyer
Written by Evan SchumanOctober 4th, 2007
Call this the season of the Battle of The Books, with Barnes & Noble this week following Borders with major Web site revisions. And both of those sites are clearly trying to undermine Amazon.
The B&N enhancements are aimed at differentiating themselves from the others by trying to become a place for book lovers rather than mere book buyers. Among the new twists: a literary online magazine; podcast interviews with “leading writers, muscians and filmmakers”; readings and social networking.
But B&N barely matches Amazon on being able to scan through books and other services that speak to the purchase decision.
Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code.
-Marc
