nook In Store Coupons

[inSANEmom]

First let me say that i love my nook. It goes with me everywhere. I'm a little irritated at the fact that some of the ebooks ar emore expensive than their paperback version, but I tell myself that the convenience and space saving benefits outweigh that irritation.

But a couple days ago, something happened that really mad me mad.  It's bad enough that my B&N membership card doesnt give me a discount on nook accesories or eBooks. And now, the coupon I received ON MY NOOK while in the store, does NOT apply to nook items. How completely ridiculous is that? It's a 10% off one item coupon and I couldn't use it on an eBook or on any nook accessory.

Do you really want me using my nook at all, B&N?

[tmj4477]

I completely understand your view. Personally, I think I actually might get rid of my membership card since I don't buy traditional books anymore. I believe if BN does not do something for the Nook owners who are also membership holders they are going to lose a lot money from people dropping thier memberships.

So my question is BN what are you going to do for the Nook owners who have a BN membership card? Heck I would even pay a little more for a upgraded card that would give me a discount on digital books.

[JdiennoPSU]

I believe that the only way B&N could give you a discount on digital books from the A5 publishers would be to jack up the prices for those books and then discounting the books to the price that the A5 publishers require.  Could be wrong about this though.

Sadly when it come to eBooks from the A5 publishers there is no way that B&N can discount the books to be less then what these publishers are expecting.

[FrogAlum]

Nope, they can do nothing with the pricing at all.  The only way around this seems to be what Sony did, discounting the gift cards.

I saw the coupon on my nook also, this is the second time they have done this.  They could at least let us use it on nook accessories!  Like you, it really made me angry, enough to walk out of the store.  I brought this up at our store's "nook event" and they stated it had been a real problem and many people walked out.

JdiennoPSU wrote:

I believe that the only way B&N could give you a discount on digital books from the A5 publishers would be to jack up the prices for those books and then discounting the books to the price that the A5 publishers require.  Could be wrong about this though.

Sadly when it come to eBooks from the A5 publishers there is no way that B&N can discount the books to be less then what these publishers are expecting.

[FantasyRider]

While I can see the A5 price being an issue for eBooks, the accessories and devices are all B&N.  There is no reason they should not allow those to be discounted via a membership if they wanted to.  That said, now that my family has two nooks, all I seem to be able to use my membership for is the cafe.  I don't spend enough money there to recoup the cost of the membership. 

The best discount I have found so far for my eBooks is the Master Card from Barnes and Noble.  It gives me an instant 5% discount every time I purchase an ebook via Barnes and Noble.  Right now they are even throwing in a $25 gift card for new accounts.  Since my card is only used for my B&N eBook purchases, I just pay it off each month and don't pay any interest.  The 5% discount is not as much as the membership gives for physical books, but at least it is something to make a person feel like they got a deal! 

P.S. I don't work for B&N - so not trying to make a sell

[FrogAlum]

Combine that with the Bing cashback opportunities (usually 8-10%) and you come out ahead!

FantasyRider wrote:

While I can see the A5 price being an issue for eBooks, the accessories and devices are all B&N.  There is no reason they should not allow those to be discounted via a membership if they wanted to.  That said, now that my family has two nooks, all I seem to be able to use my membership for is the cafe.  I don't spend enough money there to recoup the cost of the membership. 

The best discount I have found so far for my eBooks is the Master Card from Barnes and Noble.  It gives me an instant 5% discount every time I purchase an ebook via Barnes and Noble.  Right now they are even throwing in a $25 gift card for new accounts.  Since that card is only used for B&N eBooks, I just pay it off each month and don;t pay the interest.  The 5% discount is not as much as the membership gives for physical books, but at least it is something to make a person feel like they got a deal! 

P.S. I don;t work for B&N - so not trying to make a sell

[Kadin]

It's funny how this whole A5 model is so similar to the very controversial 'price fixing' that used to occur back in the day.  I see it's still illegal in the US, is this A5 now a modified version of it in a now accepted form?

Wiki

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

Kadin: please see the many threads on the 'Agency Model'. It's been a very hot topic for months. Here's a thread that's currently raging: link.

"Resale price maintenance" has been legal (unless a particular instance is proven to be anti-competitive in a court of law) in the US since the Supreme Court's Leegin decision in June 2007. Setting a required price for goods sold on consignment (rather than wholesaled) has been legal in the US since the Supreme Court's General Electric decision back in 1926.

[tmj4477]

Really I did not know the BN Mastercard gave you a discount I might have to look into that and drop the membership card. But I do agree with others with not understanding why we cant get a discount at least on Nook accessories.

[Lugaid_Llyr]

Funny incident about B&N membership sales.

Last week my daughter and I were in the local B&N to browse and pick up a bookmark for my youngest. While we were there my she found a copy of a Benny & Joon DVD she wanted. I gave her my credit card to pay with and continued browsing through the History section.

The salesman tried to convince my daughter to by a B&N membership and said No Thanks, besides I'm underage and its my mother's credit card. Thinking the salesman didn't want to take the card because she wasn't me she watched as the salesman hunted me down through the stacks in the store.

Once he found me he tried very hard to convince me to buy a membership. I said no thanks and he continued to badger me about all the benefits of the card.  I discounted each of his arguments,

I seldom shop in store

I can't use the membership on eBooks and nook products,

I buy hard cover online and get the online discount.

If I buy 2 books, I've hit $25 and get free shipping

By the time he was done, 10 minutes later, he dejectedly went off looking like he might cry and rang up the DVD.

Made me wonder. My daughter=in=law works for a competing bricks and mortar book store and they have a month quota of memberships that they are expected to sell. Every month some employee is short and family of all staff member help by buying a membership card. Some of us have several by this time. 

If B&N has the same type of requirement for their employees, I really for sorry for the poor guy. But not sorry enough to spend $25 on a useless membership.

[Jbman]

I recently choose not to renew my membership for this very reason. On an aside, it seems like since ebooks do not include covers, binding, pages, etc that they would be cheaper than physical copies. It confuses me when ebooks are more expensive than actual books.

[Pinkyogadiva]

What happened to the coupons that would Pop up on the nook for coffee and smoothies? I am not rejoining B&N membership. It does not Provide coupons for nook.

[tmr4]

Coupons for the snack shop ended a while back. The B&N membership doesn't provide any value if you only do ebooks. It is really a store related promotion, at least with the current structure of the ebook market.

[RHWright]

What happened to the coupons?

Like any business, they probably periodically review the success of their coupon marketing efforts and saw too little return on their investment.

Despite what idea people may have constructed in their minds, coupons are not a way for a company to give you a reward just because they like you and value your patronage.

They are there it inspire you to spend more money. That free cookie? They want that enticement to get you in the line and also decide to buy a cup of coffee (or two).

And with coupons, the metrics are easy. They can pull reports on every transaction with a coupon and see how many included other items in the transaction.

I've not seen any verified stats, but my guess is they found out Nook coupons did not result in enough sales to warrant the time/man-hours/logistics that the promotions required.

[AudyLou]

I AGREE!  Not being able to use coupons feels like those of us with Nook color are being cheated and deprived of a service to those of us who are Members.  I also will drop my membership if B&N doesn't allow discounts for us.

[bklvr896]

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AudyLou wrote:

I AGREE!  Not being able to use coupons feels like those of us with Nook color are being cheated and deprived of a service to those of us who are Members.  I also will drop my membership if B&N doesn't allow discounts for us.

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If you are talking about using coupons for the purchase of eBooks, for a larger number of books, B&N can't allow the use of coupons, because they are not the seller of the book, the publisher is.  For books published by the 6 largest publishing companies and all their divisions and subsidiaries, retailers are prohibited from allow discounts of any kind.  If you look at the Nookbook description for any of these books, it will say, sold by:  Random House, or MacMillan, etc.  That means the publisher is the seller and controls the price, BN is only the agent or method of distributing the book.  Books by other publishers will say sold by:  Barnes and Noble.