Staples stores to sell Amazon Kindle
First to market is not always best. Amazon.com released Kindle and e-books in 2007, well before its principal rivals joined the fray with “Nook” and iPad. Since Barnes & Noble, Apple, and their allied publishers have jumped into the market, however, Kindle sales have slowed dramatically. Eager to regain its commanding market share, Amazon.com announced early this week that its Kindle readers now will be available at 1500 North American Staples stores. Staples outlets will offer the standard Kindle for $139(usd), and they will sell the 3G model for a few dollars more. Target stores began rolling out Kindle packages early this summer, but a widespread boycott of Target stores has cut deeply into its sales of consumer electronics.
Speaking for millions of would-be e-readers, a Chicago Borders shopper pointed out, “The reader is a minor one time purchase. Overpriced e-books is where the retailers make money. Why do e-books cost so much more than the paperback version? Why can I share a paperback book but not an e-book? Until this situation is improved this avid reader is sticking to paper.” Borders has taken those comments to heart, slashing its prices on e-books by 10%, and lowering the cost of its readers to $129.99(usd), one of the lowest prices in the fiercely competitive market.
E-books are one of the rare sources of growth in a languid publishing industry. Good for writers who recognize a potentially insatiable market, and good for publishers whose production costs for e-books are a fraction of the cost of paper books, e-books undoubtedly are the key to literature’s and journalism’s futures. Last April, Goldman Sachs predicted e-books sales would increase five-fold by 2015; sales already are beating the Wall Street wizards’ expectations.
