the Nook is going to give the Kindle a run for its money
There are some voices out there trash talking the B&N ‘Nook’.
The fact that B&N has sold out through Christmas and is letting potential sales “escape” is held out as evidence.
…which strikes me as insane. B&N did a certain size production run.
Given that, which is better: to sell out, or not to sell out? Clearly, to sell out, for several reasons:
1) maximizes the number of early adopters talking up the product to others
2) maximizes the number of people buying e-books for the Nook
3) builds buzz for the e-book reader so awesome that it sold out weeks before Christmas
The big win that B&N has, though, is not just a short term current production run thing: the big win for B&N is the structural aspect of having an expensive brick-and-mortar infrastructure.
I am an example of Amazon’s wet dream of a customer: I’ve been buying thousands of dollars of books per year from Amazon since 1995 or so. Heck, Amazon used to send me Christmas gifts (no, not ones I ordered and paid for: from Amazon, to me).
I’ve been an Amazon Prime subscriber since it came out, and buy a book every few days.
I am definitely in the sale funnel for a Kindle.
…and yet I am also a B&N customer. I stop by once or twice a week. I get a coffee, and sometimes a snack. I pick up several books to flip through with my coffee, and then leave most of them behind.
Why? Because I suspect that Amazon’s prices are lower, and I just like dealing with them.
For the last month or two, though, I’ve been walking past a huge Nook display every time I go into B&N.
I can pick up a Nook and play with it (or, at least, I can as soon as they stop being sold out).
This is where B&N is going to win.
Right now Amazon sells e-book readers to everyone who already knows what a Kindle is, wants one, and is willing to take a chance on one sight unseen.
That describes a particular hard core, but it doesn’t describe everyone.
To reach more than just the hard core techies – especially when you’re trying to break a thousand year old paradigm and replace it with a new one – you need to create a welcoming storefront environment when the lumpenproletariat can touch the merch.
Steve Jobs gets this, and that’s why Apple Stores have performed so well.
B&N is setting up a miniature Apple Store inside every one of their big boxes.
All sorts of Middle America folks are walking past those Nook booths every week.
Not only will they play with Nooks, and then buy them, but B&N is perfectly placed to sell e-books to every Nook owner.
The possibilities are near limitless.
At the register, they can ask me “do you want to get the e-books to go along with these hardcopy books, for just $x more?”.
Heck, at the limit, B&N doesn’t even have to move paper products any more – they just need to have 1 copy of each title so that we monkeys can flip through them while we eat our snacks, and then they can sell us the bits.
Of course, Bezos is a genius (and I’m not just saying that because I’m typing this while using a D.E. Shaw wrist wrest and mouse pad), and no one can predict what varieties of clever he’s going to bring to the show.
Interesting times ahead!
(I can’t wait!)
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December 1st, 2009 at 2:28 am
I like eBooks in principle, but I have at least 3 serious reservations about them.
1) You can’t back them up. I’m a backup Nazi, and the fact that I can’t do backups on ebooks is terrible from a data integrity standpoint.
2) They’re grossly overpriced. Ebooks frequently sell for not much less than a discount hardcover, and for more than the retail price of a mass market paperback. That’s insane.
3) You can’t read them anywhere you want. I’d want to read them on the reader, on the nice big screen of my Mac, or anywhere else I deem appropriate. Anybody remember hardware dongles? The DRM on ebooks is similarly crazy.
December 1st, 2009 at 2:58 am
Plus Bob, we don’t know what apple is up to. There is talk about a bigger screen I touch. Apple could come out with a reader soon. From what I hear, the best advice is to wait 12 to 18 months and let the market clean up the problems unless Obama creates a kindle czar.
December 1st, 2009 at 3:03 am
[quote]wrist wrest and mouse pad[/quote]
What’s a wrist wrest and mouse pad?
December 1st, 2009 at 7:17 am
The hardcore book types already shop at Amazon so if they want to adopt, that is where they are going. The go to B&N for coffee, to browse and for wifi.
My impression is that B&N gets a fair amount of sales from people who are looking for gifts- hence the popularity of commemorative Obama Inauguration picture books. You arent going to convert this gift market to an eReader because it wants a WWII or golf book to present. Presenting an ebook for Fathers Day just isnt going to cut it.
Two promising markets- Oprah Book Club types and romance readers. The Oprah types probably dont want another device to carry around so they are unlikely to be adopters until there is an iphone reader. Plus they probably like the social aspect of handing the book around with paperclippped in notes.
The romance market is one where your analysis is probably correct. They are well known as vociferous readers- to the point where storage for all their books becomes a problem. They would also probably be good for a subscription model of having new books pushed to them. And it removes a stigma of being seen to be reading a romance novel in public. The primary barrier is that they are low tech, so an in store opportunity to touch the product and have someone set it up for them is just what is needed to convert a sale.
Could you make a market out of romance readers? I really am not sure what they economic is. Do they trade around their books verses buying? If so a successful eReader that is sold in store would need some sort of DRM to accommodate this.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:18 am
Data point: my wife also makes Amazon very happy. She finally decided she wants a Kindle, so we’re getting one for Christmas. She’s done some research and compared the Kindle vs. Nook vs. the Sony e-book reader, and determined that the Kindle is better in several ways.
What sold her on the Kindle (vs. having Amazon continue to send her dead trees) was getting to play with one in person. So Travis has a point about B&N’s physical presence being a valuable selling tool.
But note that the Kindle she played with was her aunt’s and uncle’s. This is kinda like saying you borrowed your grandmother’s Kindle. These are folks who are about as far from the bleeding edge of technology as you can get without giving up your microwave, but they have email and they have a Kindle. And they love it. And they’ve showed it to everyone in their church and their sewing circle and their seniors group.
I think Bezos has reached well beyond the hard core techies and early adopters.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:05 pm
[quote comment="228379"]
Two promising markets- Oprah Book Club types and romance readers. The Oprah types probably dont want another device to carry around so they are unlikely to be adopters until there is an iphone reader. Plus they probably like the social aspect of handing the book around with paperclippped in notes.
[/quote]
There is a free iphone/ipod touch app that lets you buy and read Kindle books.
Screen’s too small.
If Apple finally comes out with that damn tablet, that’ll be a big advantage — kindle’s already there, with a nice display and touch screen == it’s not e-ink, but e-ink haint got color… I’d probly buy one.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:08 pm
[quote comment="228379"]Could you make a market out of romance readers? I really am not sure what they economic is. Do they trade around their books verses buying? If so a successful eReader that is sold in store would need some sort of DRM to accommodate this.[/quote]
The romance reader is a big book trader. I have seen reviews that the Nook allows users to swap books which would be attractive to them. But on the other hand, there are a lot of romance readers that want a paper back book they can toss in their purse and pull out during breaks and lunch.
I’d be more interested in a Dell mini 10 like product with a rotating screen. You’d have a device that can handle office, web, email, gps navigation and be a ebook reader. But I think in the end you’ll have to pry a good old dead tree book from my cold dead hand.
December 1st, 2009 at 7:27 pm
[quote]You can’t back them up. I’m a backup Nazi, and the fact that I can’t do backups on ebooks is terrible from a data integrity standpoint.[/quote]
I’m not sure about the backup options for the Nook, but you can back up your Kindle books on your computer’s hard drive. All you have to do is connect your Kindle to the computer with the USB cable that comes with the Kindle.
[quote]You can’t read them anywhere you want. I’d want to read them on the reader, on the nice big screen of my Mac, or anywhere else[/quote]
Amazon recently released a Kindle app for the iPhone, as well as a “Kindle for PC” program that allows you to read your Kindle books on your computer. From what it says on their web site, they’re planning to release a similar program for Mac and an app for Blackberry soon. I think the phone’s screen is too small to read comfortably, but I might read books on my computer screen if the e-reader isn’t handy.
[quote]I have seen reviews that the Nook allows users to swap books which would be attractive to them[/quote]
Due to conflicts with various publishers who objected to the book-loaning feature, the Nook now only allows you to share each book once, with only one other person (who also requires a Nook of his/her own), for a period of 14 days. At the end of the 14 days, the other person’s access to the book is cut off and access is returned to you, and you can never loan it again.
If B&N had stuck with their original plan to allow you to loan a book to as many people as you wanted (though only to one person at a time), I might have gone with the Nook instead of the Kindle. Amazon allows you to share your Kindle books with up to five other user accounts, and those users can read the books on a Kindle, a PC, or an iPhone.
I resisted getting an e-reader because I like the feel of reading a paper book, and because I like to share books with other members of my family. But, I read several books per week, and we simply don’t have enough space in the house to store them all. I’ve been selling the used copies and donating some of them just to make room for new books. I want to support my favorite authors by buying their books, so I figured I’ll have to support them with my eBook purchases instead. I finally ordered a Kindle on Sunday. It was delivered today but I haven’t had enough time to play with it yet to determine if I like it.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Good point.
“To sell out, or not to sell out?”
That, indeed, is (always) the question.
December 1st, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Clearly TJIC has demonstrated that 85% of the market is just not going to buy Ugg’s online since they arent able to kick the tires on the kicks.
The Innovators have already sussed out 2005′s hot new products based on random blog comments and have moved on. So who’s left? Meh.
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:46 am
[quote comment="228400"]Good point.
“To sell out, or not to sell out?”
That, indeed, is (always) the question.[/quote]
It would be interesting to see where profits are being made. Publishers might require a retailer to buy a certain quantity for hardcovers to get the ebooks which the retailers might sell at a loss. And as Kristen points out, the books aren’t free to circulate, price point is going to be a big factor in the success or failure of the concept.