Amazon Gets Blow-Back Over Plan To Sell Kindles At Small Bookshops 176
Rambo Tribble writes "No sooner had Amazon revealed their plan to offer independent book shops the Kindle for re-sale, along with a kick-back on e-book purchases, than the fur began to fly. It appears the shops view the plan as Amazon-assisted suicide. Given the apparent terms of the deal, it looks like they may have a point. Amazon may well have done themselves more harm than good with this ploy. One storeowner wrote, 'Hmmm, let's see. We sell Kindles for essentially no profit, the new Kindle customer is in our store where they can browse and discover books, the new Kindle customer can then check the price on Amazon and order the e-book. We make a little on their e-book purchases, but then lose them as a customer completely after two years. Doesn't sound like such a great partnership to me.'"
No duh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Big Warehouse Book stores kill the independent book stores. Amazon killed the Big Book stores. But the silver lining is that the death of the Big Warehouse Book stores gave new life to the independents. So now Amazon tries to kill the independents, but they are not morons.
The independents were saved by Amazon, but that doesn't mean they are stupid enough to let Amazon kill them next.
Time for a different business model (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm firmly in camp ebook. Let's disclose that up front.
Book stores should charge cover. The experience of browsing in a book store is much better than browsing Amazon's web site. The tablet kindle store is better but it still doesn't compare to browsing on a shelf, reading a page on a whim. So when it's time to find something new to read, I'll go spend an hour in Barnes & Noble and make a list of a dozen books. I'll probably buy a coffee while there, but otherwise B&N is making nothing off me.
That's not fair to them, but that is how their business is structured. I fear bookstores collapsing. I preferred Borders and was disappointed when it went under. Don't want that to happen to B&N. But what answer is there? There are only a handful of reference-type paper books I would buy. Might get a calendar once a year. Couple presents. But Amazon gets most of my book dollars. That's just sad reality.
So, I say, charge me cover. Heck, charge everybody cover. $2 to come in. If you buy a book, offer a $2 discount. The bookstore is suddenly less disadvantaged then previously. If you are a paper book buyer, you're not disadvantaged. If you really are a paper book buyer and are simply browsing, suddenly, you're the party suffering. But you're incidental to this- if bookstores are in trouble, you're going to lose them eventually. So you have the heavy burden of paying a couple dollars, or you can browse at a library instead.
The small bookstores TFA discusses aren't necessarily the same as B&N - but that's the problem. They have even less to offer. Stocking Kindles may not be the answer, but they're getting squeezed by both Amazon and B&N. They need to find a niche compatible with their clients to survive.
Bookstores need to shape up (Score:3, Interesting)
If bookstores want to stay in business, they need to level the playing field. Requiring sales taxes on internet purchases was a good start, but only a start. For example, Amazon isn't forced by the cities to overbuild its parking lots as brick & mortar bookstores are.
Bookstores also need to adopt Amazon's business model. Amazon has low storage costs (warehouses in rural areas) but has to ship individual packages to each customer, while bookstores have high storage costs but ship everything to the store by freight. Bookstores could downsize their physical presence, keep most of their inventory in inexpensive rural warehouses like Amazon, and offer free overnight or 2-day shipping to the store, no membership required.
So there's still room for innovation, if bookstores are willing to learn from the competition.
Re:How is this worse? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm kind of interested in the bookstores I know of that are not going under because of Amazon. At least here in Chicago, the independent booksellers I frequent appear to be doing very well, especially now that the Borders and B&N and other chain bookstores have all but disappeared.
I don't see that they've changed their business model much with the rise of e-books, yet they are still busy, filled with customers, and in once case, even expanding.
If you treat customers right, I think there's still room for booksellers to succeed. Don't compete on price - compete on service.
Amazon Bookstore (Score:5, Interesting)
The independent books that I know have a small edges going for them.
There is new market for “shopping / entertainment“. You go to the store to be entertained and you pay via a purchase. Kind of like renting office space at the coffee shop for the price of a cup of coffee. Most of these shops tend to be narrowly focused, have a deep catalog of hard to fine / out of print stuff (which is sold via Amazon), have lots of events (singings, clubs, etc.) and sell a lot of stuff other than books.
Oddly the one that I am thinking about was the Amazon Bookstore specializing in woman and lesbian literature. There was a bit of a tussle between them and Amazon.com over the name and the more or less won that fight.
Re:How is this worse? (Score:3, Interesting)
It could be better. If Amazon were serious about it (and I think it would be in their interest to be serious about it), they could set up a kiosk in these bookstores that would keep cached copies of as much of the Kindle library as possible on a local server, and have some Kindles set up to use them, and allow people to browse the Kindle books in their entirety in the store - just like a real book. This would drive people to the stores for a better eBook-buying experience (where they can buy other stuff as well) and gets around the publishers' restrictions on doing the same online.
Amazon, drop me a line if you wanna outsource this. ;)
Re:Soon, no more bookstores. (Score:5, Interesting)
The big coffee-table picture books will still be around (looking at some of the beautiful photography in those books is lost on an 8.9" kindle screen). I also think technical books will remain viable in print (I've got a handful of dev-related books on my kindle, and I've invariably bought the printed versions where available). I also still insist on buy DVD/BluRays, mainly because I don't like the Netflix availability (although I do use it), but also seem to be in the mood to watch movies when my internet connection goes down.
The market is dwindling, I grant you, but there are niches where I think physical books will remain relevant. Maybe we'll see bookstores dwindle in size to become like a magazine stand or similar.
Re:Soon, no more bookstores. (Score:4, Interesting)
And I think that will happen when 4k TV takes off. I don’t hear anybody talking about shipping physical media for that format.
No way will this work. Bandwidth caps as they are today will prevent people from downloading 4k video. Here's a reference to a 4k documentary [gizmodo.com] that is 160GB. Does that sound like something that's going to fly with the ISPs we currently have?
Re:May as well get SOME money (Score:2, Interesting)
You might as well get what money you can while you can. Owning a book store does not sound like a thing that is going to last for long.
Exactly -- if the customer is in the store and the store can't show that they provide any value to that customer, it sounds like the stores have already lost.
It's not like customers aren't going to buy a Kindle just because they can't find it in their local bookstore.
Re:May as well get SOME money (Score:4, Interesting)
I still use bookstores, but I go there to buy high quality hardbound prints of books that I like to re-read, or older paperbacks. The small bookstores I go to have always catered to this market, so while there may be some issues with bookstores staying afloat, the ones I go to have been expanding their selection of quality bound books. I've bought several copies as gifts as well, all from the same two stores near where I live. I never considered doing that on Amazon, as I can't gauge the print quality over the internet.
Another thing is that certain specialty book stores (like scifi/fantasy genre stores) will always have the best fiction on their shelves, vs the metric assload of poor quality stories I find as the majority of Amazon selections, with a very limited ability to refine searches based upon preferences that I can more easily communicate to a person.
And I'm saying this as an Amazon Prime user with an extensive selection of kindle titles. Most of those are copies that I own and keep for travel purposes. What I would like to see are book publishers distributing download codes with their books, so I could get an ebook copy after I pay for a high quality printing. I really don't consider the burgeoning ebook reader market of people who are rediscovering books on marketplaces like Amazon as the same market of avid readers who like the feel of a good book in their hands- if anything, I'd wager that many Amazon users will start buying hardbounds in the future much as I am doing now.
Re:How is this worse? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it does mean bookstores need to do more work to encourage and nurture a certain feel of community, actually talking with customers and engaging with them, but... That's a good thing. We need more of that and fewer standardized, giant corporation-driven stores.
Re:May as well get SOME money (Score:4, Interesting)
As for music stores, yes there are fewer, but the ones that are around seem to have found their niches and look pretty stable. Music distribution has changed, but just like radio and tape did not wipe out live performance, downloadable digital music has not wiped out physical stores.
Re:How is this worse? (Score:4, Interesting)
That is one of the humorous sides of advertising online. I needed a part for my motorcycle. The original lasted for more than thirty years, but rubber compounds do age - so I made a purchase. For three weeks now, every place that advertising isn't blocked entirely, Google manages to slip an advert for the same or similar parts for motorcycles. DUHHH - the part I bought will probably last longer than I will now! I won't be needing another, unless I buy another 30 year old bike to add to my stable!
Re:May as well get SOME money (Score:2, Interesting)
I visited, found a book ( an Arduino programming manual ), and, looked for somewhere to read it, as I am getting older and standing causes my feet and ankles to swell up.
So I wander down to the cafe area and sit. No one much is there so I figured I would not be in the way. In no time, I had someone right over telling me this area is for cafe customers only. Sorry. My bad.
It looks just like a Starbucks cafe with stuff served in Starbucks cups. Ok.. I'll order a frappucino - its only a dime more than if I got the identical drink at the Starbucks directly across the street. She makes it. I tender my Starbucks discount card. She is miffed - she can't take a Starbucks card. Do I have a Visa or cash?
By this time I am really getting annoyed. Starbucks has this promotion going if I buy a coffee on their card, I get free refills. I ask her if the Starbucks free coffee refills work here. They don't. She still is standing there, wanting another credit card - while I am pointing to the logo pasted all over the cafe and the logo on the Starbucks card.
Yeh, I had a VISA on me but damned if I was going to use it. By this time I am seriously annoyed. All I wanted to do was see how the book was laid out. First she demands I buy something in order to have a place to sit, now I have to forfeit what little incentive I have for buying a five dollar cup of coffee.
I leave her with the coffee I am sure she is going to pour down the drain. I did like the book but I have already made enough of an ass of myself.
I go to the register with the book and am quickly informed if I buy some sort of loyalty card, I get a 20% discount. With that, I figured the store played discount games just like every other store does... print full price on the cover and charge less to make the customer feel like he made a wise purchase - as only fools and rich people these days seem to pay list price - so I ask for the senior discount. I am well old enough to qualify. I am denied. No discount. List price,. I hemhaw around a while trying to see if I can get the price down a couple of bucks... at least enough to pay the sales tax. No way. Either I get a discount card right then, or pay full price. Being already in a sour frame of mind, I laid the book down and walked away.
I ordered the same book online a little later while enjoying another Frappucino I got at the Starbucks across the street.
Saved the price of the frappucino, sales tax, and a bit more by doing it that way. And made a mental note there was not much sense going across the street from the Starbucks to browse the bookstore anymore.
Re:May as well get SOME money (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure about book stores, per se, but I think that printed books have a long life ahead of them. I imagine that they're analogous to vinyl records. I've already begun moving the bulk of my paperback collection to ePub but some titles are worthy of better treatment and get upgraded to a hardback. I'll pay a premium for an elegant copy of a book that I love.