Today (Sunday, June 6th) we’ll see the Kindle being made available at Target stores all over the country. This is going to have some important consequences – some of which are already in motion.
The beginning of the end of the Perception War
The Kindle has been attacked on many fronts – some valid, some wholly imaginary, and some with questionable merit. We’ve had claims that eInk hurts eyes, that the Kindle is difficult to use, that the screen isn’t readable, that the device is ugly, that it reads nothing like a book, and a lot more.
For a whole lot of people tomorrow is a chance to see things for themselves.
They’ve been hearing from Apple and the New York Times that LCDs are just as good for reading as eInk. Some B&N Store employees have been lying to readers and telling them that Kindle is terrible and that it has no free books. The Press have been avoiding mentioning the Free Internet connection and other strengths like readability in sunlight. The Press and Blogs have been playing up fears that books might be deleted from people’s Kindles.
Tomorrow, this war of Perception comes face to face with Reality.
It’s been tremendously difficult to fight all the negative perceptions enemies have been spreading. Now, via Target, the Kindle gets a fair chance as users get to see Kindle for themselves.
Hasty Reactions from Competitors – Price Cuts
Sony has cut the price on its eReaders. This might mean the advent of new Sony Reader models or it might mean worries that the Kindle will finally be available in retail. The Nook now comes with a $50 gift card to buy ebooks. This again might mean Nook 2 is on the way or it may be a safeguard against a Kindle people can touch and see and feel before buying.
The Kindle provides a lot of benefits that one or more of its main competitors miss – a huge amount of focus on reading, simplicity, wider range of books, cheaper books when not restricted by Publisher collusion, free Internet access, international support including free store buying, WhisperNet based features, Text to Speech (when not restricted by the Publisher), more new free book offers, better customer service, and more.
Until now a lot of these benefits were invisible to users – No article ever mentions Free Internet or Text to Speech or the focus on reading. In fact, articles only mention the Kindle’s focus on and optimization for reading when they’re complaining that it does nothing except read. Now users get to see all of the Kindle’s benefits for themselves and they are free to make a fair comparison with the Nook and the Sony Reader.
As B&N and Sony scramble to face the challenge of a Kindle that is available at Target one of their easy options is to cut prices and thereby match the Kindle’s value proposition.
Well-thought out Reactions from Competitors – New eReader Models
Sony can no longer get by with an eReader that doesn’t have 3G wireless. A lot of people have no idea of the benefits i.e. 60 second downloads, free Internet, store you can browse anytime, and Whispersync. When users find out about all these benefits a Sony Reader Touch Edition will seem a rather poor alternative. Sony will definitely need a new generation of eReaders that have wireless.
The Nook will have its own problems – It’ll be obvious to users that the Kindle is more responsive and easier to use and that the book prices seem to be better. A quick release of Nook Lite and Nook 2 suddenly becomes very important.
Kindle at Target will mean that B&N and Sony get more aggressive with their release plans. Perhaps they will even announce their new models a few months before actual launch.
Much better Kindle Sales
Target has already said that in the trials (at 102 Target Stores) Kindles flew off the shelves. Well, now we get 17 times the number of stores carrying Kindles.
A lot more people will see the Kindle and find out about it. A lot more people will get to see it regularly and have the Kindle stuck in their heads. A lot more people will get an opportunity to satisfy their curiosity.
All of this will lead to a lot more people buying Kindles.
It might seem a little hasty to assume sales will be good. Well, they don’t have to be spectacular. Even a single new Kindle sale at Target is one that probably wouldn’t have happened without retail availability. Every single additional Kindle sale would add to total Kindle sales. That in turn leads to better economies of scale, more power to price ebooks at low prices, more resources to work on new features, and better Kindle prices – all of which leads to more sales.
Kindle at Target will help fuel the vicious cycle of kaizen that Amazon have created for the Kindle.
Many more Kindle for PC, iPhone, Mac users
A lot of people will find out about the Kindle and a significant number of those who don’t buy the Kindle will find out about the Kindle Apps and get one – for their PC or Mac, on their Blackberry or iPhone, and so forth.
This helps Amazon hugely – They sell more ebooks, they can lower ebook prices, they can gain more market share, they lock those users into the Kindle eco-system, they make them likelier to end up as Kindle owners, and they spread the Kindle service and ecosystem.
Even a single additional Kindle for PC user thanks to retailing at Target means ebook sales. We can be pretty sure there will be more than 1 person who will decide they can’t afford a Kindle but will choose one of the free Kindle Apps instead.
Additional Retailers end up selling the Kindle
CostCo, BestBuy, and lots of other retailers will be looking at what happens with Kindle at Target. If it’s a hit they’ll be requesting Amazon to supply them with Kindles too.
These retailers must have a good idea of the potential eReaders have – but they have been selling a lot of the less impressive eReaders. They get to sell a hot device and Amazon gets lots of free exposure for the Kindle. There are also a significant number of customers who trust these retailers and aren’t yet aware of the Kindle (or unsure of it) - they will now feel more comfortable getting a Kindle.
It’s important for the Kindle to get into these stores because a lot of other eReaders are already in – For example, Bestbuy has the Nook, the Sony Reader, and the pretend-Reader iPad. If the Kindle can make its way in then Amazon gets a chance to make sure users get to see the Kindle before making their decision.
Kindle starts selling a lot more and we get cheaper prices and newer Kindles
There are lots of interesting possibilities – Kindle sells more and Amazon hits further economies of scale and cuts prices, Amazon feels it should release a new model faster as there’s lots of demand, Kindle 2 stock starts running out and Amazon has to make a call on whether to switch to Kindle 3.
Target and good Kindle sales in retail stores might mean Amazon decides to put more investment into devices.
Let’s say sales go up 40% and Amazon suddenly feel they made a mistake by not exploring physical retail presence before. They think they could go up a further 40% by getting Kindles into 2 more retail chains. The next logical step would be to have more product offerings in retail stores – Kindle DX for one.
What do you do after that? Well, perhaps a lower priced Kindle, perhaps newer Kindles (Kindle 3, Kindle 4, Kindle DX 2), and perhaps completely new additions to the Kindle family.
Sales of other eReaders increase
Not everyone who sees a Kindle and thinks an eReader is a good fit for them will get a Kindle. A few users will prefer the touchscreen the Touch Edition has, others will choose the Nook’s dual screens, and some casual readers will decide they want to get one of the matchbox $120 eReaders.
As long as Kindle sales increase this isn’t a bad thing. Ideally, Amazon would want that Kindle sales increase a lot and other eReader sales increase only a little bit. However, any increase in Kindle sales is too valuable to pass up. Plus the Kindle has beaten other eReaders so far – despite losing the perception war. When users finally get to see the Kindle for themselves its highly unlikely that they will buy it less often.
So B&N and Sony should be happy – there is a silver lining. The downside is that the Kindle and Amazon’s Cloud will probably still get the lion’s share of sales.
Fewer people interested in a reading device will buy an iPad
It’s a pretty obvious consequence – The Press have drummed up so much hysteria and muddied the waters so much that lots of people think the iPad is just as good for reading as the Kindle. When people who actually want a device for reading take a look at both they’ll easily see that one device is built for them and another is trying to use a few apps to pass off as a reading device.
Here are a few things that’ll be obvious to readers when they’ve played around with both – Kindle is lighter, Kindle is more compact, Kindle’s screen is more readable, Kindle is half the price, Kindle has store browsing and free 3G wireless downloads, Kindle has free Internet, Kindle doesn’t have distractions, and that the Kindle is a device meant for reading.
People who want primarily to do things other than reading will still get an iPad. It’s just that more and more readers will be able to see that the Kindle is much better for reading.
A Big Boost for eBooks
Nearly 30% of the first week sales (unit sales) of Steig Larsson’s latest book were ebook sales – 125,000 out of 425,000. That figure is astounding and as people find and see Kindles at Target and buy more Kindles they will buy eBooks.
Those eBooks will add on to the sales already being generated via the Kindle and those being generated via PC, iPhone, and iPad. It all adds up and we will get closer and closer to a world of Publishing dominated by ebooks.
Publishers probably aren’t very concerned with Kindles being available at Target but they should be – this may very well be the killer blow.
Filed under: kindle Tagged: | kindle future, kindle target
One question is how will they know the Kindle has free Internet browsing? Many current Kindle owners don’t know it does, because it’s put into a submenu called ‘experimental’ and some, when trying it first, 2 years ago, found it slow and didn’t try it again (and that includes gadget columnists), not realizing that as with any small device, the mobile-device optimized sites are the ones to get to.
Because of increased use meaning more cost to Amazon, I imagine, it’s not advertised particularly, which is one reason columnists don’t mention it — the other due to lack of interest in looking at features when writing columns, especially if it’s not the iPad.
It’s hard to imagine Target store clerks will have any idea how to find/show the web-browser. And probably not to advantage, people choosing sites with complex design and many large images.
Since it’s one of my favorite features, I’m always amazed that people don’t know about it but the forums show that the most active and curious do, and find good uses for it. But, will Target staff help customers find it? It’ll be interesting to watch.
I just don’t understand why anyone would use it. Maybe it is your only internet access. But I, like a lot of people, always carry a phone with internet access. I usually have a laptop, netbook or ipad as well. The internet access on the kindle is almost unusable. I think that if people try it, and see how bad it is, they will decide the device as a whole is probably bad (even though they would probably never use the web access.)
Kindle is a reader, it shines as a reader. Showing off a feature that doesn’t work that well and isn’t what it is for, just detracts from it as a reader.
An absolutely *perfect* example of why the Kindle’s built-in internet support is so great is Feedbook’s ‘download guide’ book with embedded http links for updating the guide itself as well as every book in their catalog: http://www.feedbooks.com/help/kindle#guide
The wikipedia lookup feature as well. A lot of sites with ‘mobile’ versions are also quite usable.
Now, is the browser something you’re going to use to just browse any arbitrary site? Absolutely not, but is it useful? Absolutely no question.
Adam, I have a great netbook but not with 3G, and won’t pay for it. I do use the Kindle for lookups when out, as when at Costco and checking reviews on products — see http://bit.ly/kpics
You don’t need it as you have a smartphone with paid data-access.
But for anyone else who’s curious, try the mobi links-file to mobile-device-oriented sites, at http://bit.ly/mobiweb and some tips for faster access.
> We’ve had claims that eInk hurts eyes
Such a claim is a medical one. It is not something that one will be able to verify on their own by minimally testing a device over a short period of time.
Unfortunately when I drove to a local Target here in Connecticut on Tuesday they knew nothing about a Kindle — “No, we only have the Sony reader. We’re not going to get anything new.”
that’s too bad.