ebook prices

[LabRatSB]

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amelia815 wrote:

labrat:  You should respond back and ask what promotion they are running that would result in their ebooks being priced higher?  And if they plan on running these promotions for very long. 

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I did just this.  Here was my response:

I'm sorry, but you can't really call this competitive pricing.  Ten
dollar differences in which the Barnes and Noble price is higher is in
NO WAY competitive.  And if I'm paying $10 more for an ebook with you
versus your competitor that is not the best value for your customers.


Also, can you tell me what current promotion you're running that is
making your books higher priced?  That one is eluding me as well.

And here was the response I got....more BS! 

Dear Customer,


Thank you for your email regarding our Everyday Low Price Promotion.

We are currently testing a promotion on bn.com that offers a lower price
on books to all customers.  We are lowering prices on thousands of books
in order to give our customers the best possible price on bn.com at any
given time.  It is a limited time offer, but the exact end date is still
being determined.

For your convenience, below the details of this promotion:

Special Holiday Offer Details:

For a limited time, starting on Nov. 2, 2009, customers who are not
Barnes & Noble Members will receive the advertised "Member Price" on
bn.com only on eligible books and only at bn.com and its mirror sites.
This offer is subject to change or discontinuation without notice; we
will, however, honor properly placed orders with valid methods of
payment with sufficient funds placed prior to such change or
discontinuation, while supplies last.

Only books that display a Member Price on bn.com are eligible for this
offer. The Member Price will be applied during checkout.

Additional Rules Governing Use of this offer: This offer is (i) not
redeemable for cash or cash equivalents (including Gift Cards and online
Gift Certificates); (ii) not valid on past purchases; (iii) not eligible
for purchases of the following products and services: Barnes & Noble new
or renewal Memberships, Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, gift-wrapping,
audiobooks, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, digital content and downloads
(including but not limited to audiobook MP3s, digital books, magazines,
and periodicals), certain digital devices, products from the Rosetta
Stone Series, products available for in store ship-to-home orders,
applicable sales tax or shipping and handling expenses; (iv) not valid
on Used Textbooks sold via the Barnes & Noble BookQuest service, or
purchases of any products provided via third parties accessible from the
bn.com website (e.g., PC and video games, etc.); and (v) may not be
combined with coupons or discount promotions that require a valid and
current Member account. Shipping charges may apply. This offer is not
valid at any Barnes & Noble retail store or at any Barnes & Noble
College bookstore. Void where prohibited by law.

Seriously?!?!  If this is the customer service that BN is giving out, I am cancelling my Member Card and I'm ordering a Kindle.

[JD66]

Add me to the list. The nook looks beautiful. But I will not pay more for each book. I was planning to get one of these for my wife for Christmas, but I will get a Kindle instead.

THe price difference is just too much.

[C8H10N4O2]

This is so disheartening for me.  I was budgeting to get the nook shortly after it would be released.  I do a ton of work with .pdf's, so this was one of the major selling points for me.  I had held off purchasing a Kindle due to the lack of .pdf support, just hoping someday an e-book reader would be released that would be great for ebooks and .pdf's.  BOOM, I get a notice about the nook and get all excited.  I was definitely ready to buy as soon as I had funds available, and then I read through stuff here and realized the ebook prices were stupid high.  Gah!  I'm so frustrated now.  I really don't care about all the bells and whistles... I just want an ebook reader that will allow me to do the following:

1. Read ebooks comfortably

2. Read .pdf's comfortably

3. Save money by purchasing ebooks

There is no way I can see the value in the nook now with the prices being so outlandishly high compared to amazon.  I'm with everyone else who says s/he does not expect BN to be cheaper than amazon, but they should at least be somewhat competitive.  I wouldn't mind paying $1-$3 more occassionally for BN ebook purchases, but the keyword is "occassionally."  I cannot justify the nook purchase as of this moment because the ebook prices are just not worth it.  There is no way an ebook should EVER cost more than the paperback version's retail price.  That's simply absurd.

I guess I'll sit around and wait for the next generation of the Kindle to come out, unless BN decides to actually listen to us and lower their prices on their ebooks.  This is most unfortunate.

[LabRatSB]

Well, I wrote to customer service AGAIN.  I told them not to give me the "copy and paste" answer.  That I wanted an actual response to my question (gasp!).  I asked about the ebook prices, gift cards and member discounts.  Here is what I got this time.

Thank you for inquiring about nook, the world's most advanced eReader!

We value our Members, however, we believe nook is competitively priced
and we are not offering any discounts on the purchase of the product.

However, Barnes & Noble Members can get FREE Expedited Air Shipping if
they pre-order today! This is a limited time offer, so for more
information about this promotion, please visit:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/offers/index.asp

About our prices, all of the prices on all of our products are set by
the publishers. What ever they want us to do with their prices then that
is what is done on our page and/or retail stores.

We are also unsure of when gift cards will be able to be used to buy
ebooks.
However we advise to check and visit our website as much as you can to
view our changes that occur everyday.

Visit www.bn.com and click on the options that appear in the upper
right-hand corner to view information about your order.

We look forward to your next visit.

Wow!  Free shipping?!?!  Golly gee!  I can already get that.  And that info about the publishers regulating the prices is a farce.  Then explain to me why I can get one book on bn.com for $19.99 and the same book on amazon is $9.99, because I still don't understand that.

[JimM]

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LabRatSB wrote:

And that info about the publishers regulating the prices is a farce.  Then explain to me why I can get one book on bn.com for $19.99 and the same book on amazon is $9.99, because I still don't understand that.

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It's not a farce: Amazon takes a loss on sales of eBooks.

For reference:

Teleread

Gigaom

Publishing Central

[Furious]

If there was any merit to those articles you'd see predatory pricing lawsuits from B&N against Amazon.  Until that happens, it's just sour grapes.

Additionally, are those articles really trying to convince me that a publisher is losing money on a $9.99 ebook when it sells the paperback for much less?

Wal-mart and Amazon get better prices for things because they create demand simply by offering the products.  I won't claim this is true of ebooks, I honestly don't know.  I do know that Wal-Mart gets better prices because they demand a better price from the suppliers.

[JimM]

Another reference, this time from Publisher's Weekly:

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Currently, publishers make as much money on Kindle editions as print editions, since Amazon, the largest e-book retailer, pays the same discount for e-book editions as it does for print—off the same list price, whether bound book or e-book. (An Amazon spokesperson would not comment on the discount issue, but a number of publishers confirmed that Amazon pays the standard discount—which is, with some fluctuation among houses, about 50% off list price—for Kindle editions.)

Amazon, which sets the price for everything it sells, is, as many people interviewed point out, losing money on a majority of Kindle editions. Although the price point for Kindle editions varies, the dominant one for hardcover bestsellers is $9.99, a price one publisher called “a killer.” (The e-tailer is pricing some of its Kindle bestsellers even more aggressively, with titles like Stephenie Meyer's New Moon, currently #4 on the Kindle bestseller list, at $6.04.) At $9.99 Amazon is selling its Kindle editions at, generally, a 60% discount; Amazon sells its print bestsellers at, on average, a 45% discount. The reigning price point in the Sony e-book store, with variations, is $11.99.

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[eaie]

Those article don't say it, but I think they're referring to the NY Times bestsellers. Amazon (and BN) are both losing money on those by selling them at $9.99. The publisher is not losing anything because they're selling the books to the vendors at the regular price.

It's in other older books, say those with a paperback version out, where I don't understand how BN's prices are often times considerably higher than Amazon's. 

[StevenP]

I pre-ordered the nook and then the next day cancelled it.  I realized that if the primary reason someone is buying it is because it's the shiny new product on the block then they will be disappointed in the end when the really shiny products come out, at the same price, but with actual savings on the ebooks.

This is an awesome device that is coming out and is the same price as the Amazon Kindle DX (the large version, which appeals to me for tech books):

http://www.entourageedge.com/

This is Microsoft's new Courier Tablet coming out:

http://gizmodo.com/5380626/courier-user-interface-in-depth/

[rhadinNY]

I can shed some light on the issue of whether Amazon is selling ebooks at a loss: They are. How do I know? I was involved in negotiating a contract with Amazon to sell a publisher's pbooks in ebook format. The contract provided that the publisher sets its suggested selling price and Amazon receives a wholesale price (i.e., a percentage discount) off that price, which Amazon has to pay the publisher each time a Kindle edition is sold regardless of the price at which Amazon sells the product. Amazon could just as easily set a retail price of twice the publisher's suggested price (of course, no one would buy the book), but would still only pay the publisher the wholesale price. Similarly, Amazon could decide to give the Kindle edition away for free, but it still would pay the publisher the same wholesale price.

As for predatory pricing, there is none. Amazon may be the biggest fish in the pond but it doesn't dominate the market and is not yet in a position to dictate pricing. And not all of its ebooks are being sold at a loss. Certainly the $9.99 bestsellers are being sold at a loss, but most ebooks are being sold at a breakeven or  slight profit. B&N has no predatory pricing complaint yet.

I, too, am disgusted by B&N's customer service responses and lack of vision as regards the ebook market. For years I have avoided buying books at Amazon and have been willing to pay a higher price at B&N even as a B&N member. But whereas I have been willing to pay a few dollars more for hardcover books at B&N than I would have to pay at Amazon (and sometimes other booksellers), I am not willing to pay the large difference that exists between B&N and Amazon ebooks -- especially when I will not really own the ebook. (The limitations are draconian and B&N's lend once to one person scheme is no relief from the draconian DRM restrictions imposed by publishers. This is not B&N's fault but B&N needs to flex its muscle with publishers and ask publishers if they prefer to see a marketplace with only Amazon as a national retail bookseller [Borders is in its death throes and not much of a competitor].)

I currently own a Sony PRS505 Reader. I had planned to buy 1, possibly 2 nooks and continue to support B&N. But the whole fiasco with the membership dissuaded me from preordering. Now the membership fiasco and the noncompetitive pricing of the ebooks themselves convinces me to look elsewhere for a reading device. I certainly can't do any worse, and based on experiences with other ebooksellers, I can do much better than B&N. I am currently waiting to see what the Sony 900 will be like, as well as the Plastic Logic Que, Astak's forthcoming devices, and the iRex 800. These devices will enable me to buy ebooks at B&N should I so choose because they will support B&N's DRM scheme, but they will also open up other ebooksellers to me.

[Furious]

This is ridiculous.  Nobody knows what Amazon is getting the ebooks for.  Publishers can't say if they are giving Amazon a better price because everyone else would demand the same price.  Furthermore, IF Amazon truly is selling every book at a substantial loss in order to gain market share or prevent competition, it's a slam-dunk anti-trust case.

The argument that B&N somehow must sell ebooks at the hardcover list price is ridiculous.  I'm not sure you could convince anyone that a book that's been in print for over a decade demands a $40 ebook price tag.  The notion that publishers cannot turn a profit on a $9.99 ebook when they sell the paperback for $6.00 is absurd.

[eaie]

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rhadinNY wrote:

I can shed some light on the issue of whether Amazon is selling ebooks at a loss: They are. How do I know? I was involved in negotiating a contract with Amazon to sell a publisher's pbooks in ebook format. The contract provided that the publisher sets its suggested selling price and Amazon receives a wholesale price (i.e., a percentage discount) off that price, which Amazon has to pay the publisher each time a Kindle edition is sold regardless of the price at which Amazon sells the product. Amazon could just as easily set a retail price of twice the publisher's suggested price (of course, no one would buy the book), but would still only pay the publisher the wholesale price. Similarly, Amazon could decide to give the Kindle edition away for free, but it still would pay the publisher the same wholesale price.

As for predatory pricing, there is none. Amazon may be the biggest fish in the pond but it doesn't dominate the market and is not yet in a position to dictate pricing. And not all of its ebooks are being sold at a loss. Certainly the $9.99 bestsellers are being sold at a loss, but most ebooks are being sold at a breakeven or  slight profit. B&N has no predatory pricing complaint yet.

I, too, am disgusted by B&N's customer service responses and lack of vision as regards the ebook market. For years I have avoided buying books at Amazon and have been willing to pay a higher price at B&N even as a B&N member. But whereas I have been willing to pay a few dollars more for hardcover books at B&N than I would have to pay at Amazon (and sometimes other booksellers), I am not willing to pay the large difference that exists between B&N and Amazon ebooks -- especially when I will not really own the ebook. (The limitations are draconian and B&N's lend once to one person scheme is no relief from the draconian DRM restrictions imposed by publishers. This is not B&N's fault but B&N needs to flex its muscle with publishers and ask publishers if they prefer to see a marketplace with only Amazon as a national retail bookseller [Borders is in its death throes and not much of a competitor].)

I currently own a Sony PRS505 Reader. I had planned to buy 1, possibly 2 nooks and continue to support B&N. But the whole fiasco with the membership dissuaded me from preordering. Now the membership fiasco and the noncompetitive pricing of the ebooks themselves convinces me to look elsewhere for a reading device. I certainly can't do any worse, and based on experiences with other ebooksellers, I can do much better than B&N. I am currently waiting to see what the Sony 900 will be like, as well as the Plastic Logic Que, Astak's forthcoming devices, and the iRex 800. These devices will enable me to buy ebooks at B&N should I so choose because they will support B&N's DRM scheme, but they will also open up other ebooksellers to me.

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Has this been confirmed then, that ebooks from BN.com will be able to be accessed in other devices? I thought BN was using its own flavor of epub DRM (as oppose to the somewhat standard Adobe DRM'd epub).

[soylentgeek]

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Furious wrote:

This is ridiculous.  Nobody knows what Amazon is getting the ebooks for.  Publishers can't say if they are giving Amazon a better price because everyone else would demand the same price.  Furthermore, IF Amazon truly is selling every book at a substantial loss in order to gain market share or prevent competition, it's a slam-dunk anti-trust case.

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Selling products below cost does not equate to violation of anti-trust laws. If that were the case, every retail chain in the United States would have already been dissolved, as I can't think of a single one that doesn't have loss-leaders. If Amazon is selling eBooks at or below cost so that people will shop on Amazon and potentially buy a bunch of other stuff that has a higher profit margin, they're not doing anything different than any other retailer does when they sell one item below cost to get customers in the store where they will buy high margin items as well.

It's not a new practice, and it has nothing to do with anti-trust laws. Of course any store that sells every product below cost is not going to be sustainable forever, because instead of posting profits quarter after quarter, they'd be posting losses.

If Amazon were to buy every single company that makes an eReader so that there could be no competition, then you might have grounds for an anti-trust case. Offering loss leaders? Not so much.

[j_c83]

Sounds to me like the "customer service" response is finding key words through a computer search and sending out a standard email to you. You are not getting a response from a real person. I'm waiting until after the release myself to make up my mind. I have read in many articles that with the release of the nook B&N will also be rolling out lower more competitive ebook prices. I also read that books in which they are the publisher will be discounted even deeper. We'll see...I'm not gonna hold my breath though, especially with even better looking readers on the horizon.

[Furious]

Loss-leaders and predatory pricing are completely different things.  A loss-leader is legal because they take a loss on a single product or a few products that don't effect an entire industry.  These articles contend that Amazon is taking a loss on EVERY ebook they sell in an effort to corner the market for the Kindle.

Big difference here.

[JimM]

Well, it's not true that ALL Amazon eBooks are lower-priced that B&N counterparts: this thread gives some examples where B&N has the better price.

[rhadinNY]

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eaie wrote:

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 Has this been confirmed then, that ebooks from BN.com will be able to be accessed in other devices? I thought BN was using its own flavor of epub DRM (as oppose to the somewhat standard Adobe DRM'd epub).

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Yes, this has been confirmed. Plastic Logic's Que and the iRex 800 will immediately be able to handle both B&N DRM and the standard Adobe DRM. Astak expects to be able to do the same shortly. Sony has indicated it will upgrade its support of ePub to handle both. Other ebook device makers who already support ePub also are expected to do the same.

Remember that we are talking about ePub and not eReader. B&N has announced that it will be converting to an all ePub store but with its own flavor of DRM, which flavor it has already licensed to Adobe for inclusion in the forthcoming upgrade of the Adobe ADE.

[soylentgeek]

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Furious wrote:

Loss-leaders and predatory pricing are completely different things.  A loss-leader is legal because they take a loss on a single product or a few products that don't effect an entire industry.  These articles contend that Amazon is taking a loss on EVERY ebook they sell in an effort to corner the market for the Kindle.

Big difference here.

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I doubt that they're taking a loss on every eBook they sell, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are taking a loss on some of them. What would be a major problem for Amazon is if they have struck deals with publishers where their cost for an eBook has to be lower than every other format - such as that for nook or other readers.

Collusion with publishers to keep other readers from being competitive would be a huge problem if it could be proven.

[Furious]

You can get "favored nation" pricing contracts.  It happens all the time.  Collusion to prevent competition is something entirely different, but it would not be illegal for Amazon to have a contract that says, "we get the lowest price you offer to anyone."

Wal-Mart beats up suppliers all the time.  Suppliers come up with their best price, Wal-Mart says they'll stock it for that price minus some % and they can take it or walk.  Most take it of course.  It's all about volume and Amazon (and B&N for that matter) should get discounts for moving large volumes of ebooks.

Who knows for sure what's really going on.  I'm upset enough about the lending gimmick to keep me on the sidelines for a bit.

[nddaveman]

Sweet. I'm lovin' my Kindle. I don't care what peple say - saving money while going green is the new black.