Inexplicably, Barnes & Noble will not be leveraging its 700+ stores to sell its upcoming Nook e-Reader. This negates a huge advantage it has over Amazon and its competing Kindle products. According to paidContent, the book store giant will have demo units at all its stores, but only select outlets will be selling them. The site reported:
Its 700-plus U.S. stores should give Barnes & Noble an edge in the contest for e-reader dollars but many won’t be selling the actual Nook on site. Instead, I was told as a customer, the booksellers will order a device for in-store customers from the BN.com website to be shipped to their home, much as the buyer could do online from home. Only certain stores will carry the Nook for on-the-spot sale.
The only reason Barnes & Noble should restrict sales to certain stores is if it has a severe supply problem with the Nook. Otherwise it’s just wasting a huge opportunity. The device is expected to come out at the end of November — right in the middle of the busiest shopping period of the year. It just seems flat-out dumb not to take advantage of all those shoppers. Hopefully, for B&N’s sake, this was just a case of a foolish salesperson giving out poor information.
i was looking at getting a kindle to help the space issues of living in NY and then donating a lot of paperbacks to the local library. Is this device any better — has anyone used them both?
thanks for any responses
@jpkmets I really like the Kindle. I've played with every model out there and just think it's a great experience. The Nook will be available for demo at B&N stores in November. I want to check it out, but just don't buy B&N as a digital company. I have more faith in Amazon supporting the Kindle than B&N supporting the Nook.
I think Amazon will have better support in the long run. B&N are so damn expensive anyway.
@supply shortage
those are common around releases now. helps generate buzz and inflate demand.