When comparing Waterstone's vs eBooks.com, the Slant community recommends eBooks.com for most people. In the question“What are the best eBook stores?” eBooks.com is ranked 3rd while Waterstone's is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose eBooks.com is:
eBooks.com offers academic eBooks on their store that are claimed to be from the world's leading scholarly and academic book publishers.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro eBooks offered are Adobe Digital Editions compliant
Waterstone's eBook store sells .epubs that are encoded with Adobe Difgital Editions DRM. This allows the .epubs purchased to be used with the Adobe Digital Editions application that can then transfer purchased .epubs to ADE compliant eReaders.
Pro Generally cheaper than WHSmith
For those that are stuck using UK eBook stores it woul appear as though Waterstone's has better prices than WHSmith.
Pro Academic books
eBooks.com offers academic eBooks on their store that are claimed to be from the world's leading scholarly and academic book publishers.
Pro Free excerpts
eBooks.com offers free excerpts for their more popular eBooks. This way users can get a feel on how the title reads and what it's structure looks like.
Pro Very intuitive site
The site is very easy to understand and navigate.
Pro Send gift certificates
eBooks.com allows for users to purchase gift certificates online worth 10-100 dollars and will then e-mail said certificate to an e-mail address of the purchases choosing along with a customized message.
Cons
Con UK only store
Waterstone's is a UK only store, so those outside the region are out of luck purchasing from them.
Con Some eBooks more expensive than paper books
Sadly Waterstone's does not have as much pull with publishers as Amazon so there are more high priced eBooks on their store.
Con Sells Kindle devices but its eBook store is .epub only (which are incompatible)
Something of an odd predicament in that Waterstone's has a contract with Amazon to sell Kindle devices even though they only sell .epub eBooks on their Waterstone's branded eBook store.
Con Store feels cluttered and unintuitve
The landing page for eBooks.com feels a bit cluttered and can be confusing to navigate to the users desired section.