Conspiracy Theory: What is Amazon hiding about the Kindle?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by binzer

before I made my post I did check various sites and all the devices I listed were in stock where I checked.

And yes, I know the Cybook is often out of stock, but I have personally never seen the Kindle listed as in-stock, and I check almost every day when I'm reading book reviews.

At any rate, my point is that Amazon faking a shortage (or even just not trying very hard to correct one) is certainly possible now or in the future, as it is definitely a viable marketing strategy. At this point I think it is unlikely, but I still wouldn't be surprised.

Could it be that the Kindle is back ordered enough that what stock they do get goes right out the door and that is why it's not listed as in stock?

[binzer]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Could it be that the Kindle is back ordered enough that what stock they do get goes right out the door and that is why it's not listed as in stock?

Of course it could be, and I already said that that was my assumption in my last post :P All I'm doing is theorizing about possibilities because it's fun, which is what I think the OP intended.

[Alisa]

I don't think the Wii is a conspiracy either. It takes time to accelerate production. I don't think the scarcity is profiting them (or Amazon). It profits ebayers. If they were going to play a hype game with it, they wouldn't have dragged it out this long. Now it's old news. I can't see that being out of stock long term benefits them in any way. If anything they lose sales to competing products..

[astra]

Has anyone here actually ordered(or know someone who has done it) Kindle recently[within the last 2-3 weeks] and received it? If yes, how long has it taken?
Or, if you/they received Kindle withing the last 2-3 weeks when did you/they ordered it?

[TheLongshot]

I know Sony has had some stock problems, because my wife ordered a Reader for me for our aniversary. I think it ended up taking about three weeks to get it, and I got it about 4 days after our anniversary. I somehow doubt Sony is playing that type of game.

Jason

[pitcher23]

I honestly don't think Amazon is purposely limiting supplies. It really isn't in their best interest. Unlike the Wii, Xbox and Playstation, Ereaders are a relatively small market and tactics like limiting the supply to draw more people wouldn't necessarily work the same.

The bread and butter of the Kindle is the content and they can't sell the content unless someone has something to read it on. The price of the reader itself subsidizes a good chunk of the whispernet cost with Sprint, so the more readers sold, the better it is for Amazon all around.

As others stated, I think the problem lies more on the side of the e-ink screen manufacturer and how many screens they are making available.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by pitcher23

I honestly don't think Amazon is purposely limiting supplies. It really isn't in their best interest. Unlike the Wii, Xbox and Playstation, Ereaders are a relatively small market and tactics like limiting the supply to draw more people wouldn't necessarily work the same.

The bread and butter of the Kindle is the content and they can't sell the content unless someone has something to read it on. The price of the reader itself subsidizes a good chunk of the whispernet cost with Sprint, so the more readers sold, the better it is for Amazon all around.

As others stated, I think the problem lies more on the side of the e-ink screen manufacturer and how many screens they are making available.

I totally agree and I believe Amazon leaves the unit marked out of stock because they have a backlog and every time they receive a shipment it goes to fulfilling existing orders with not enough left to change the status. Most people in the Kindle group have indicated that the units they order are shipped in a couple of weeks or so later.

Dale

[JSWolf]

I think that if it were found out that Amazon was playing games, they would lose sales to Sony and Cybook.

[Roto]

I received my blue PRS505 last Thursday. It took about a week from bhphotovideo.com. I had considered the Kindle, but the fact that it's never in stock on top of the extra $100 didn't help its case.

[Alisa]

The extra $100 is a way bigger issue for me than the wait. I'd rather wait a few weeks and have the reader I want. For me the search and dictionary lookup features in addition to the Amazon store made the $100 worth it. Not everybody cares about that, though. After waiting so long to find a reader that I liked, I wasn't going to settle because of a little extra wait.

[TheJohnNewton]

Hmmm... They limit production to hype demand? Isn't their main business selling books? In order to sell ebooks they need people to actually have the Kindle right (which I think is equally silly, why artificially limit your book sales to one reader?) This theory seems absurd to me and if I owned a company where people did rediculous things like that they wouldn't work for me for very long. I'd fire them and give the money saved on their salary to the guy who could figure out how to increase production so I could have more actual happy customers rather than some long line of unhappy potential customers.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Don't forget: This is Amazon we're talking about. This is the company that quietly endured almost a decade of losing money in their business model, until they finally took off. Amazon has demonstrated that they don't have a problem looking at the long-term view.

Perhaps this is why the Kindles ran out: Demand simply outstripped Amazon's expected numbers. Considering how slow the e-book market is growing, that would not surprise me. But the fact that they haven't made any radical changes suggests to me that they're still following a long-term plan, and just aren't that worried about a shortage right now.

I also question the sensibility of limiting your e-book catalog to one dedicated reader. But Amazon may simply hope to wear everyone down, until only they (and their Kindle system) are left. Personally, I'd be happy if they simply wear every format down to theirs (I'd prefer a more universal format, but Mobi isn't bad), and bring down the tower of e-babel. Again, given Amazon's preference for the long-term view, I can believe this could be their plan.

Is this, in fact, what they are planning? Only Amazon insiders know, I suppose. The rest of us will just have to wait and see.

[Halk]

Perhaps, owing to caution they've decided to produce to the "worst case" scenario of sales. Thinking it's better to lose out on potential sales, than have a plant tooled up to produce them, and piles of them sitting unused.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

That would be more in line with the way they work. Amazon doesn't keep "back-ordered" products... there's no such thing as an "Amazon warehouse." They just broker delivery of other companies' products when they become available.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I also question the sensibility of limiting your e-book catalog to one dedicated reader. But Amazon may simply hope to wear everyone down, until only they (and their Kindle system) are left. Personally, I'd be happy if they simply wear every format down to theirs (I'd prefer a more universal format, but Mobi isn't bad), and bring down the tower of e-babel. Again, given Amazon's preference for the long-term view, I can believe this could be their plan.

My not-very-educated guess on the reason for this is that they want to move people into the periodical content and Whispernet is pretty key for that. I'm betting it has a really high margin compared to books, especially new releases and best sellers which they're probably selling at a loss. Maybe if another company approached them with making fully Kindle store compatible hardware, they'd be open to it. Who knows?

I'd love it if they sold Mobi files, but I wonder if that gets to be an issue since they own Mobi and I seem to recall reading here that Mobi's agreement with their sellers says that they can't undercut prices. Maybe since .azw isn't directly competing with Mobi for the same devices and software users, they don't have to obey that policy. Just a guess.