Ebook gifting?

[IronmanMM]

If I wish to purchase a DTB as a gift for someone, it is easy to go to the web site and purchase the book then ship it to the recipients address.

Is it possible to purchase an ebook for a friend and have it appear on their nook when they, "search for new B@N content?"

[bklvr896]

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IronmanMM wrote:

If I wish to purchase a DTB as a gift for someone, it is easy to go to the web site and purchase the book then ship it to the recipients address.

Is it possible to purchase an ebook for a friend and have it appear on their nook when they, "search for new B@N content?"

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Not at this time.  The default credit card is used to create the encryption key for each book, so the only way you could do it would be to buy the book, send it to them to sideload to the Nook and you'd have to give them your cc to input into the Nook to open the book.

Perhaps someday they will find a way to do this.

[lkmiller]

The best you could do now is give them a B&N gift card and a glowing recommendation for the ebook you think they might like.

[IronmanMM]

I thought that this might be the case.  But, I was hoping for better, perhaps in the next software upgrade?

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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IronmanMM wrote:

I was hoping for better, perhaps in the next software upgrade?

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It's nothing to do with NOOK. It's all on the bookstore side. Right now, no e-book store has systems in place to allow specific e-books to be gifted. There is some speculation that many/most/all e-book stores are working on such systems for the Christmas season. Whether that's true, and, if so, whether any stores will succeed, is unknown and we'll just have to wait and see.

E-book gifting is non-trivial. It would require that the giver be able to specify a date on which the e-book appears in the recipient's account. It should have a way of notifying the recipient that they got an e-book gift. It should have a way of making sure that multiple givers aren't giving the same title. It needs a subtle way of dealing with the problem when the recipient wants to buy the title, unaware that someone's already giving it to them as a gift. It requires a way for the recipient to refund the e-book if they don't want it.

Gift cards are a lot simpler.

[flyingtoastr Inspired Wordsmith]

I wonder if BN could adapt the tech they used for the five week giveaways back in May for gifting. You could choose an ebook to gift and instead of delivering it to your library it would generate a specific code good for one DRM of that specific book. They could let you email the code or send it in a nice gift card or something from there, and all the other person would have to do is type in the code from their account and get the ebook. I'm sure it would require a bit of work, but it seems like one of the easier methods.

Eh, something to mull over.

[lkmiller]

Doesn't Fictionwise have the ability to buy a specific ebook for someone?  I know you see a button on the ebook's page which says "Buy this ebook for a friend".  However, I don't know if it just creates a gift certificate in the amount that the book costs or whether or not it only allows them to get that book.

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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lkmiller wrote:

Doesn't Fictionwise have the ability to buy a specific ebook for someone?  I know you see a button on the ebook's page which says "Buy this ebook for a friend".  However, I don't know if it just creates a gift certificate in the amount that the book costs or whether or not it only allows them to get that book.

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It's a gift certificate. Here's what you get when you click that button:

Fill out the form below to send someone a Fictionwise Gift Certificate. Once you submit the form, you are automatically taken to the checkout page and you pay for the Gift Certificate just as you would when you make an eBook purchase at Fictionwise.

After it is purchased, the person you bought the Gift Certificate for is sent an email and told how to redeem it. Essentially, they register at Fictionwise, then apply the Gift Certificate code, and the gift is put into their account.

[lkmiller]

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Doug_Pardee wrote:

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lkmiller wrote:

Doesn't Fictionwise have the ability to buy a specific ebook for someone?  I know you see a button on the ebook's page which says "Buy this ebook for a friend".  However, I don't know if it just creates a gift certificate in the amount that the book costs or whether or not it only allows them to get that book.

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It's a gift certificate. Here's what you get when you click that button:

Fill out the form below to send someone a Fictionwise Gift Certificate. Once you submit the form, you are automatically taken to the checkout page and you pay for the Gift Certificate just as you would when you make an eBook purchase at Fictionwise.

After it is purchased, the person you bought the Gift Certificate for is sent an email and told how to redeem it. Essentially, they register at Fictionwise, then apply the Gift Certificate code, and the gift is put into their account.

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So they could then get any book they wanted.  I wonder if it even tells the recipient about the book the purchaser wanted to give them.

[lisat96]

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flyingtoastr wrote:

I wonder if BN could adapt the tech they used for the five week giveaways back in May for gifting. You could choose an ebook to gift and instead of delivering it to your library it would generate a specific code good for one DRM of that specific book. They could let you email the code or send it in a nice gift card or something from there, and all the other person would have to do is type in the code from their account and get the ebook.  I'm sure it would require a bit of work, but it seems like one of the easier methods.

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This is similar to the way that Audible handled audio-book gifting before they got rid of that capability.  You got a code for a specific book which could be e-mailed or printed and if your recipient already had the specified book, he/she got site credit instead.  I agree that would be the easiest way to handle e-book gifting.

[Brad_W]

This is a pretty common question, but honetly I don't see the benefit of the feature.  The more important component is the ability for the user to add a gift card to their account.  The reason being is that ebooks are not refundable unlike physical books which can be exchanged by a recipient.  Many readers actually love their gift cards. 

[bookbug127]

Many readers actually love their gift cards.

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Like me! I got a nice one from my parents last Christmas and I loved being able to just go get a bunch of books that I wanted.

I don't get why it matters if they get a specific book you want them to have. Personally, I like to pick my own reading material. If someone recommends something I'll probably check out the blurb about it and then decide whether or not to read it. 

[lkmiller]

Yes, I have to say that I prefer receiving a bookstore gift card rather than a specific book myself.  Shopping for a book is part of the fun!

[rvingmillers]

For me personally, I would prefer a Gift Card so I can choose from my wish list.  I recently redeemed points from my Visa card to receive a $100. B&N gift card and had a blast choosing books.  Depending on my mood for that day, I might want to read a mystery, or romance or just an all around feel good book.  It is nice to have a library of books on my NOOK so I can choose to read what I feel like for that day.

[graycyn]

I prefer getting a gift card myself... however, some of us have relatives who simply WON'T give a gift card, but would buy a specific book off a Christmas or birthday list.

So I think enabling gifting would be a smart move for BN. Right now, one can LEND a book to an email address associated with a BN account, I don't see why that couldn't be extended to being able to BUY a book for an email address associated with a BN account. Of course, the giver would need to know the specific address, but that probably wouldn't be a huge deal for most wannabe gifters to obtain.

[bklvr896]

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graycyn wrote:

I prefer getting a gift card myself... however, some of us have relatives who simply WON'T give a gift card, but would buy a specific book off a Christmas or birthday list.

So I think enabling gifting would be a smart move for BN. Right now, one can LEND a book to an email address associated with a BN account, I don't see why that couldn't be extended to being able to BUY a book for an email address associated with a BN account. Of course, the giver would need to know the specific address, but that probably wouldn't be a huge deal for most wannabe gifters to obtain.

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The problem the still need to get around is the DRM encryption.  But maybe there would be a way for the buyer to pay for the book and it goes into some place in your account where it tells you that such and such a book has been purchased for you, go here to download it and then it would use the recipients encryption code.  

I' guessing this must not be easy a process since it doesn't appear that most of the major retailers have this option.

[LarryOnLI]

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bklvr896 wrote:

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graycyn wrote:

I prefer getting a gift card myself... however, some of us have relatives who simply WON'T give a gift card, but would buy a specific book off a Christmas or birthday list.

So I think enabling gifting would be a smart move for BN. Right now, one can LEND a book to an email address associated with a BN account, I don't see why that couldn't be extended to being able to BUY a book for an email address associated with a BN account. Of course, the giver would need to know the specific address, but that probably wouldn't be a huge deal for most wannabe gifters to obtain.

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The problem the still need to get around is the DRM encryption.  But maybe there would be a way for the buyer to pay for the book and it goes into some place in your account where it tells you that such and such a book has been purchased for you, go here to download it and then it would use the recipients encryption code.  

I' guessing this must not be easy a process since it doesn't appear that most of the major retailers have this option.

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The DRM is NOT a problem.

The book is encrypted with the default credit card of the account it is in at time of download, not at time of purchase.

If you gift a book to someone, the encryption would be with their default credit card at the time they downloaded the book.

[lisat96]

Personally I prefer to get a gift card to choose my own books.  However, I have a niece whose reading tastes are very similar to mine.  Every Christmas and birthday, I used to order a box full of my favorites from the last 6 months and have it shipped to her.  She used to tell my sister that it was like getting a box full of chocolates.  She never knew what she was going to get before she opened it, but she knew that she would like whatever was inside.  I kind of miss picking out books for her now that she's got a nook.

[Sharksweetie]

I wanted to gift a particular book to someone with a Kindle; it wasn't possible.  But I suggested it to the Kindle Store and they added this feature soon after.  Suggest this to Customer Service.  

[Sharksweetie]

I suggested this option to the Kindle Store and they ended up implementing it a few weeks later.  It is available there now.