$89 Kindle 2 – Making sure you get the Kindle Black Friday deal

Posted on November 25, 2010 by switch11

The Kindle 2 will be available for $89 starting tomorrow at 9 am Pacific Standard Time (12 noon Eastern Standard Time).

It’s an amazing deal for a very good Kindle that comes with free 3G access to the Kindle Store and to the Internet (although on a basic browser). The part that’s worrying is Amazon saying ‘there are a limited number of Kindle 2s available’.

Amazon had a Woot deal earlier in the year that sold between 3,000 and 4,000 Kindles. The Black Friday deal probably has between 10,000 and 100,000 Kindle 2s available. If it’s the former they might get sold out in an hour or two.

This post will discuss everything you can and should do to make sure you get the Kindle deal – If you’re interested in it, that is.

Have everything ready BEFORE 9 am PST

Please Note: There is no Kindle 2 available yet at the Kindle 2 product page so you can’t add it to your cart ahead of time.

Here are the things that you should have in place if you’re buying from home -

  1. If you’re buying the Kindle 2 for yourself set up 1-Click buying and make sure your address and credit card information are correct.
  2. You could optionally save the Kindle 2 product page as a browser bookmark or leave it open in your browser.
  3. This blog will send out a reminder post at 8:57 am PST so you could subscribe if you’ll be checking your email.  
  4. If it’s a gift make sure the person’s address is correct and your payment information is correct.
  5. Think through things and make a decision.

If you click-through at 8:57 am or 9 am PST and order instantly you should definitely be able to get the Kindle 2. By 10 am PST it might be too late.

Here are the things you can do if you’ll be out shopping tomorrow morning -

  1. Set up 1-click buying and check your address and payment information.
  2. Set the Kindle 2 product page as a bookmark or better yet leave it open in your phone’s browser.
  3. Have some idea of where you’ll be at 9 am PST.

Which brings us to the actual day and time of the kindle deal.

Be Available at 8:55 am PST and Buy the Kindle immediately

  1. If you’re at home – Set an alarm for 9 am PST.
  2. If you’re out shopping – Set an alarm for 8:45 am PST so you can find a place with good wireless coverage and make your order.
  3. If you’re awake early check out Amazon at 8 am PST – the deal might be up early.
  4. Order as soon as possible – You can always cancel the order or return the Kindle 2.
  5. If you’re gifting – After making the order it might be a good idea to make sure the person didn’t get a Kindle or Nook themselves. That way you can cancel the order before it ships and get them something else.

Finally, there’s the question of whether this deal is worth it.

Should you buy the $89 Kindle 2?

Well,

  1. If you can afford the $139 Kindle WiFi or $189 Kindle 3 they are better and use the new eInk Pearl screen.
  2. If you can’t decide between $139 Kindle WiFi and $89 Kindle 2 pick the former.
  3. If you’re sending one as a gift keep in mind that they’ll know it was a $89 Black Friday deal. 
  4. Kindle 2 at $89 is the best value for money.
  5. It’s not the best eReader. It is better than Nook 1 but Kindle WiFi and Kindle 3 are better.

Also,

  1. If you want to get a Kindle just to have a dedicated eReader and you read 1 book a month or less - it’s perfect.
  2. If you read a lot – Kindle WiFi would be better.
  3. If you already own a Kindle 1 – Kindle 2 is definitely better and you get the new software features like Folders and access to all the new Kindle Apps and Games.
  4. If you own any other Kindle or Nook – It’s not worth getting a Kindle 2 since it’s just doing most of the same stuff.
  5. If you have an iPad the $89 Kindle 2 is a nice add-on device to have.

Hopefully all this information helps you make a good decision.

The $89 Kindle 2 is a great deal and if you’re interested it’s well worth it to put in a bit of preparation and make sure you get it.

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Kindle Christmas sell-out – Kindle missing Christmas except in US, UK

Posted on November 17, 2010 by switch11

It seems likely the Kindle 3 is going to be out of stock this Christmas.

Kindle Christmas sell-outs aren’t unusual – The Kindle was sold out for Christmas 2007 and Christmas 2008 with delays of weeks and even months. 2009 was the only year that the Kindle was available all through Christmas Season.

Will Kindle be in stock for Christmas 2010?

Well, it’s November 17th, 2010 and the Kindle 3 and Kindle WiFi are already sold out if you live outside the US and UK.

Kindle Christmas Availability – Only available in US and UK

  1. Kindle 3, WiFi if you live in the US - In Stock.
  2. Kindle 3, WiFi if you live in the UK – In Stock.
  3. If you live in any other country – ‘Expected to ship in 2 to 3 months’.

You aren’t getting a Kindle for Christmas if you don’t live in the US or UK.

You have to wonder what’s causing Amazon to specify 2 to 3 month delays outside of its two biggest markets. More importantly, it probably means that US and UK are in danger of being sold out of Kindles in the near-future.

Will Kindle be out of stock this Christmas?

There are a bunch of different things to factor in -

  1. Kindle is being sold in both US and UK.
  2. Holiday season always has HUGE demand.
  3. 2009 is the only year Kindles were in stock during holiday season. 2007 and 2008 both saw Kindle being sold out for weeks or even months.
  4. Kindle WiFi at $139 is really, really cheap. It might get cheaper.
  5. Kindles are available in stores for the first time – Best Buy, Staples, and Target. In the UK Kindles are available at John Lewis.
  6. Amazon is doing a lot of TV advertising.
  7. eReaders are #2 or #3 on most Christmas wishlists and much cheaper than the #1 and #2 items (Tablets and Laptops). A $139 Kindle will beat out a $475 laptop more often than not.
  8. Amazon is going to add Nook-style lending by end of 2010. Combined with all the other Kindle 3, WiFi features it makes Kindle a very compelling proposition.
  9. Sony Readers are priced too high to compete and B&N has gone into the ‘color reading tablet’ niche. Kindle has eInk reading all to itself.

Already, the first signs that all these factors might be affecting Kindle availability are showing up -

  • Amazon now has a 3 Kindles per customer limit. If you want more you have to email them. This is for Kindle 3 and Kindle WiFi only.
  • The International Kindle page shows 2 to 3 month delays. To see this just go to the Kindle page, scroll down to the country selection drop-down (it’s about 2 pages down), and choose a country other than the US. The delay is for both Kindle 3 and Kindle WiFi.
  • Kindles are now available for Christmas in only 2 countries – US and UK. 150+ countries miss out.

In effect Amazon is saving up all the Kindles for the US and UK markets. However, if Kindles are selling so fast that Amazon has to block international sales for 2 to 3 months what’s the guarantee Kindle stock will hold up.

Will Kindle be in stock this Christmas?

Probably Not. If the rest of the world is sold out by November 17th, 2010 it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which US and UK will still have stock on December 25th, 2010.

If you’re planning to gift a Kindle for Christmas now is the time to pull the trigger.

Filed under: availability | Tagged: , | 13 Comments »

Kindle 3 under threat due to poor retail availability, rival eReader offers

Posted on November 14, 2010 by switch11

The Kindle 3 might be in for a very interesting holiday season.

On paper the holiday season seems like it should be a cakewalk for the Kindle 3 and Kindle WiFi -

  1. B&N has gone with a color-screen Nook Color instead of releasing an eInk Pearl based Nook 2. 
  2. Sony has hidden behind its claim that its focusing on quality and not competing on price.
  3. There are hardly any worthy Android tablets.
  4. iPad hasn’t killed eReader sales.
  5. No strong, new eReader rivals have emerged and no eReaders with Pixel Qi or Mirasol or Color eInk screens have emerged.

Given these data points you have to wonder what could stop the Kindle 3 from taking an even more dominant market position.

Well, there are actually a few serious threats to the Kindle 3′s take-over of the eReader market this holiday season. Let’s take a look at a couple of the more worrying ones.

Kindle Retail Availability is still poor

Here’s a comment from a user who bought a Nook because he couldn’t find a Kindle -

… this made me decide to go with Kindle 3.  But they seem to treat this thing like tickets to a Hot Rock concert!  I would have to just about camp in front of the store to get one.

Well guess what.  I am not a teenager anymore and if you want me to buy your product, and you announce on the news that it is now sold at Target, Best Buy, Staples, etc. One of those stores better have it in All of Houston.

So I bought the Nook, even though I love to have the latest technology. 

The problem is actually much deeper than ‘being sold out’ in all of Houston -

  1. Firstly, Amazon is available at far less stores – Nook is now available at WalMart and lots of other places Kindle isn’t retailed.
  2. Secondly, Amazon doesn’t have its own physical stores – Both B&N and Sony have their own stores from which they can sell Nooks and Sony Readers directly to customers.
  3. Thirdly, Amazon doesn’t send out enough stock. There are numerous cases of people talking about not being able to find a Kindle 3 at their nearest Target.
  4. Fourthly, Amazon severely limits the demo units so you can’t test out wireless and a lot of the other Kindle 3 features.

So we’ve gone from ‘Kindle isn’t available in brick and mortar stores’ to ‘Kindle puts in a guest appearance at a few stores but is usually impossible to find’.   

Nook and Sony Reader continue to have a big advantage in retail availability - very few people are going to keep trying to find a Kindle in stores when they can test out a Nook or Sony Reader in person and get it instantly.

Rival eReader makers are cutting prices mercilessly

Thanks to Lucy S we know Best Buy will have Nook WiFi available for $100 for Black Friday. It’s just 10 units per store but it’ll still sell a lot of Nooks and give Nook a lot of free publicity.

Now, courtesy MobileRead, we find out about some very good deals on the latest Sony Readers.

Nov 15th Update: B&H Photo changed prices from $170 to $200 and $120 to $150 a day after this post first went out.

B&H Photo now has the Sony Reader PRS-650 for $200 and the Sony Reader PRS-350 for $150. It’s also offering free shipping. The offers last till the 27th of November and make the PRS-650 close to the price of a Kindle 3 and the PRS-350 close to the price of a Kindle WiFi.

Sony Readers are going to be on sale at the Sony Store from November 15th to November 27th - 

  1. Sony Reader Pocket Edition PRS-350 will be $30 cheaper at $150 – that’s within shooting distance of the $139 Kindle WiFi.
  2. Sony Reader Touch Edition PRS-650 will be $30 cheaper at $200 – which brings it very close to the $189 Kindle 3.
  3. Sony Reader Daily Edition PR-950 will be $50 cheaper at $250. That’s the same price as Nook Color and not bad for a 7″ eInk Pearl screen.

Like Nook 1 the Sony Readers support library books and ePub and unlike Nook 1 they sport eInk Pearl screens. They also have touch. The PRS-650 suddenly seems very tempting. For most of November Kindle 3 and Kindle WiFi will no longer be the obvious eReader choice.

For the first time since Kindle 3 was released users will have to think twice about what eReader to get. At $170 and with library book support and touch support the Sony PRS-650 is suddenly a very dangerous Kindle 3 opponent.

What does Amazon need to do to make Kindle 3 and Kindle WiFi the clear #1 choices again?

Well, it’s quite simple -

  1. Drop Kindle 3 to $170.
  2. Drop Kindle WiFi to $110.
  3. Expand retail availability. WalMart is probably not going to embrace Amazon but other stores might.
  4. Make sure there is enough retail availability.
  5. Let users try out Kindles properly – make sure demo units allow users to explore full Kindle functionality.

Nook and Sony Reader have gone from disinterested competitors that had little chance to threaten the Kindle 3 to surprise contenders that threaten to steal away eReader sales from the Kindle. Perhaps they have finally realized that if they let the Kindle 3 and Kindle WiFi run rampant this holiday season it might be the end of the eReader Wars.

Filed under: availability | Tagged: , , | 11 Comments »

Kindle 3 starting to sell out, Agency Model Wars in the UK

Posted on September 20, 2010 by switch11

It seems the Kindle 3 is beginning to sell out again. Here’s what the Kindle 3 graphite product page says -

Expected to ship in 3 to 5 days.

Ships from and sold by Amazon Digital Services. Gift wrap available

The Kindle WiFi product page has the same message. The Kindle 3 white isn’t suffering from any shipping delays and is still in stock.

If the recent past is any indicator we might soon see 2 to 3 week kindle shipping delays. If you’re thinking about buying the Kindle 3, it might be a good idea to make a decision soon.

Kindle 3 Reviews up to 1,046 total reviews

A lot of Kindle 3 reviews have been added in the last 10 or so days - the total number of reviews is increasing steadily and there are now over 1,000 Kindle 3 reviews.

It’s interesting to see the number of reviews go up so quickly – It certainly suggests that Amazon has managed to ramp up production and is shipping out Kindles at a faster rate.

Agency Model rears its ugly head in the UK

It seems that Hachette’s plan to impose the Agency Model on retailers in the UK isn’t going well. The Bookseller has an interesting article on Hachette’s Agency Model woes in the UK -

  1. Waterstone’s, W H Smith, Tesco (a major grocery store chain),  and The Book Depository have all removed Hachette ebooks from their stores.
  2. Apple is pricing books according to Hachette’s Agency Model guidelines.
  3. Amazon is pricing books as it wishes. This will probably lead to yet another Amazon vs Publisher stand-off. 

Kieron Smith of The Book Depository explains why his company has removed Hachette books -

the company had taken the decision to remove the books from sale and did not plan to sign the agreement. Smith said:

“One of the many reasons is we want to apply consistency of offer to the customer. One of the stipulations is we can’t offer coupons or discount vouchers.

If we did an e-book offer we would have to have a massive list of exceptions for Hachette titles. We are not being straight with the customer. Unless I can control a customer’s experience, selling e-books with the price set by the publisher is not something I want to do.”

It’s all very strange with Hachette asking that retailers not change prices without Hachette’s prior written consent. They’ve got to be kidding. We’re in an age of email and instant messenger and instant price changes – Do they really expect retailers to ask for permission and then wait for written consent?

If retailers agree to this what happens next - Will Hachette ask people to correspond with them via snail mail and to use Latin on their websites instead of English?

There’s also a lot of talk about Amazon UK’s stance in the past that it would set the prices of books it sells (without allowing any outside interference).

Amazon.co.uk has previously insisted that it would set its own prices for Kindle editions.

…

Amazon’s pricing is in line with comments made by Steve Kessel, the retailer’s senior vice president of Amazon Kindle, in August, who said the retailer will set the prices of the e-books it sells

The good thing is that Apple seems to be the only retailer going along with the Agency Model in the UK and it has little presence as far as books are concerned. If Amazon, W H Smith, Waterstones, Tesco, and The Book Depository all refuse to adopt the Agency Model then Agency Model publishers won’t really have any channels left for selling their ebooks.

Filed under: availability | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

Kindle 3 back in stock

Posted on September 16, 2010 by switch11

The Kindle 3 is back in stock, as is the Kindle WiFi.

Amazon’s website lists both as ‘In Stock’ and you could get either as early as Friday -

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon Digital Services. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Friday, September 17? Order it in the next 14 hours and 21 minutes, and choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Kindle 3 graphite, Kindle 3 white, and Kindle WiFi are all showing the same status. Thanks a ton to Benjamin for leaving a comment with news of the Kindle WiFi being back in stock.

Did Kindle 3 demand go down or did Amazon and eInk/PVI ramp up production?

Well, there are a few things that suggest Amazon ramped up production -

  1. The delays were becoming overly long and there were lots of complaints and perhaps Amazon decided to increase production and avoid losing out on sales.
  2. The holiday season is coming up so Kindle 3 production had to be ramped up anyways plus any excess stock produced now can be sold then.
  3. Amazon started a new TV advertising campaign and perhaps that’s part of a broader Kindle push that includes increasing Kindle 3 production.
  4. The reviews have been very good and the main issue (Kindle 3 freezing) is fixed. It almost makes you wonder if the freezing fix has a bigger role than we realize in the sudden availability of Kindle 3 and Kindle WiFi.
  5. The Press, for the first time, loves the Kindle and is heavily promoting the Kindle 3 – to the point that it didn’t even notice the Kindle 3 freezing issue. Amazon might have decided to make the most of this brief respite.

There were a lot of good reasons for Amazon to ramp up Kindle 3 production, not the least of which was the strong demand, and the higher probability is that Amazon ramped up production and was able to eliminate Kindle 3 shipping delays.

There are also a few things that suggest it might be Kindle 3 demand going down (although this seems a bit unlikely given the buzz) -

  1. It’s 1.5 months since the Kindle 3 was announced and preorders became available - demand might have gone down.
  2. Sony released its new readers and at least a fraction of potential Kindle 3 owners must have chosen Sony 350 or Sony 650.
  3. Perhaps the TV ad is a way to increase interest and reinvigorate sales.
  4. Perhaps people are waiting for future releases like iPad 2 and Nook 2.
  5. The kindle 3 freezing issue (which now has a fix that is being rolled out) might have slowed down the pace of sales – It’s mentioned in the reviews and in the forums. It’s not inconceivable that enough people were scared off by it to adversely affect the Kindle 3 sales rate.

Overall, it seems likelier that Amazon just ramped up production to meet demand - it probably feels that if demand were to suddenly go down it could always sell excess Kindle 3 stock during the holiday shopping season.

Filed under: availability | Tagged: , | 11 Comments »

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