Why do NookBooks cost substantially more than Kindle eBooks?

[BooksOnTheKnob]

I don't believe that Amazon considers the US Virgin Islands part of the US, for pricing purposes. Which means they get to set the price they want (as the Agency Cabal only locked prices within "the United States".  B&N, on the other hand, only has one region (and only sells to the US), so only one price.

[KingAl]

---

BooksOnTheKnob wrote:

I don't believe that Amazon considers the US Virgin Islands part of the US, for pricing purposes. Which means they get to set the price they want (as the Agency Cabal only locked prices within "the United States".  B&N, on the other hand, only has one region (and only sells to the US), so only one price.

---

I wonder why the publishers would have different definitions of "part of the U.S." for B&N and Amazon.

[scott88]

---

rotorhead wrote:

An example, The new Tom Clancy book "Dead or Alive".

Barnes and Noble nookbook $12.99  Amazon kindle book $9.99

The new Vince Flynn book "American Assassin"

Barnes and Noble nookbook $12.99  Amazon kindle book $9.99

There are many examples. This seems to be pretty typical. Why does Barnes and Noble charge 30% more for it's books?

---

Because Amazon uses these books as loss leaders. Amazon loses money selling you the book but it gets you to  buy a Kindle.

[KingAl]

---

scott88 wrote:

---

rotorhead wrote:

An example, The new Tom Clancy book "Dead or Alive".

Barnes and Noble nookbook $12.99  Amazon kindle book $9.99

The new Vince Flynn book "American Assassin"

Barnes and Noble nookbook $12.99  Amazon kindle book $9.99

There are many examples. This seems to be pretty typical. Why does Barnes and Noble charge 30% more for it's books?

---

Because Amazon uses these books as loss leaders. Amazon loses money selling you the book but it gets you to  buy a Kindle.

---

Those books are Agency Model books. Amazon is prohibited from discounting them.

EDIT: prohibited from discounting them in the United States. PRevious posts indicate that the OP is in the Virgin Islands, which is apparently considered part of the US for B&N but not for Amazon.

[shilohMD]

---

julianka wrote:

I hear this complaint a lot and I personally have yet to find an ebook that costs more at BN than at Amazon, or vice versa.  Every book I've looked for is exactly the same price at both.  And if you do find one that's priced higher at BN they apparently WILL lower the price to match Amazon if you tell them about it. 

The majority of ebooks have prices set by the publisher and the retailers have no say in the matter, which means they more or less have to be the same everywhere.  Books published by Hachette, Penguin, Harper Collins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster should be the same price everywhere.  Random House is probably about the biggest publisher that is not included in this, so there's definitely a possibility of their books being priced differently at different retailers.  But again, from what I've heard on the boards BN does not intend to be undersold by Amazon in ebooks, so if you find a lower ebook price at Amazon, email BN and they should match it.

---

I've seen this "BN will re-price if you tell them" comment before.  That's good...free market competition at work!

How does one tell BN?  Do they monitor these discussions? Is there a specific email address?

[Coanda-1910]

---

shilohMD wrote:

I've seen this "BN will re-price if you tell them" comment before.  That's good...free market competition at work!

How does one tell BN?  Do they monitor these discussions? Is there a specific email address?

---

They do monitor these forums; I've seen several "why is this book priced higher" threads here actually lead to pricing changes. Alternatively, if you look in the top-right of the website, you'll notice the little "Help" link. Clicking on that takes you to the Help Desk, From there, you can click on the "Contact Customer Service" link. That'll give you a nice form to fill out to give Customer Service a message; they can probably figure where to forward your pricing comment from there. Or you could call them at the phone number there I suppose.

[Victor3000]

When I was deciding on e-readers I made a list of about 80 books in a spreadsheet and compared the prices of both Kindle and Nook editions. I really did not see this difference in price. Most popular books were priced the same to the penny. Lower circulation books where sometimes better priced on Kindle, but there were exceptions the other way the evened the difference out. 

The only issue I do have is that Amazon is much quicker at getting their e-books to market. I emailed a publisher, asking them when they would make more of their books available on the Nook as well as the Kindle. They responded that they had sent the files to B&N. Over 400 of them. But B&N, for some reason, is behind on making them available. 

B&N is much newer in the market than Amazon is, and they still put a lot of stock in their brick and morter stores. But, with the recent changes to the web page I've been noticing, and their huge promotional efforts with the Nook this holiday season, I believe they will be stepping up their game here soon.

[JSB1776]

I too have consistently found higher prices on Amazon than B & N:

Richard Epstein: Design for Liberty.  Amazon: $16.47, B&N: $19.46

Randy Barnett: Restoring the Lost Constitution: Amazon: $15.63, B&N: $18.81

S. Collins, The Hunger Games: Amazon: $5.00; B&N: $8.99 (similar differences in rest of series)