The U.K. online bookseller, BookDepository.co.uk, today opened a U.S. storefront at bookdepository.com. The company, which won Direct Bookseller of the Year at the British Book Awards, is looking to compete with the deeply entrenched Amazon.com (and behind it bn.com) on pricing. Among bestsellers The Shack, for example, is $8.24 at Amazon and $7.48 at BookDepository.
BookDepository.com's Kieron Smith noted that the company is up against the same competition in the UK and has been making headway there. BookDepository.com had sales of $100 million last year with half of that generated from international sources. The U.S. site, which is a step in the company's move to develop its brand internationally, offers a number of titles at cheaper prices than Amazon and, Smith pointed out, with 2.4 million titles available, BookDepository.com carries more books than Amazon.
Having an American site also allows the company to, as Smith put it, "sell US titles that we couldn’t before, due to rights restrictions in the UK." The company is currently fulfilling U.S. orders from England and will reassess this practice when "volumes are a little higher."
