Searching in vain for Amazon's Kindle in the UK

Amazon have built their business on delivering a service both physically and virtually, and are variously credited with inventing online recommendation engines, the shopping basket concept and affiliate marketing programmes. They have a reputation for consistently delivering good user experience.

Which is why, when they appear to be getting something wrong, it really sticks out.

Their move into hardware with the Kindle has generated a great buzz of both sides of the Atlantic, even though it is only available on one - and this is where I spotted a missed opportunity on the Amazon.co.uk site.

Currently, if you search for 'Kindle' on the UK Amazon site, you find no information about the machine.

The results offer alternative ebook reader products, and Kindle peripherals, but there is no page for Amazon's ebook reader.

The 'related searches' even offers you a way to refine your query with terms like amazon kindle, kindle 2 and kindle reader.

None of which give any information about the product.

Although Amazon are not selling the Kindle in the UK, surely the store here would be delivering a better customer experience if, instead of this glaring omission, they had a page explaining that the device was not available in this country yet?

Posted by Martin Belam, March 5, 2009    
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