Comments on: Refurbished Kindle $119, $169 – Stock Check

By: Amazon Kindle sold-out, refurbs available in limited quantities | e-Tech Gadget Blog

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:04:38 +0000

[...] Via [I4U] Via [The Kindle] [...]

By: switch11

switch11 — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:48:42 +0000

@ Chris – didn’t know about the 15%. thanks for pointing that out. however, i think amazon would rather that there wasn’t this price gouging going on.

@Damaso – I wonder how they’re going to meet demand for kindle 2.0 – I think the major hold-up is in number of eInk screens available and I doubt eInk can ramp up their manufacturing capacity enough. And they have Sony, Bookeen, and two other companies that they supply. Also, Sony has gone global and is definitely asking for more screens too.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:50:31 +0000

If you look at the Amazon Sales policies, Amazon gets to double dip on refurb Kindle sales: They make their cash on the first sale, then they take a 15% “fee” for any new/used/refurbished sales on Kindles that are resold in the Amazon store. 15% of $559, $700, or whatever.

If I were Amazon, I’d let people sell the refurb units.

By: Damaso

Damaso — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:02:07 +0000

I agree. I think there are lots of people who brought a refurb just to turn around and sell them on eBay. I was hoping that the refurbs would stick around and drive the prices down on eBay but I don’t think that is going to happen.

On the one hand it is nice to see that there is still a good demand for Kindles. On the other I don’t think Amazon is helping itself by underestimating demand over and over again. They better make sure they have plenty of Kindle 2.0s ready when they launch…