[QUOTE=elcreative;1540712]Funny, our local Waterstones have stock, just arrived including cases (with & without lights) and PSUs...
All the boxes on the rack are EMPTY! Gosh, must tell the staff at ours to put £100+ items on self-service rack so people can help themselves...
And knowing people who work there... "never had a lot of liking for the idea..." is wonderful comment considering eReaders are the biggest ticket item and have turned over more than any other item stocked... main complaint is inability to predict stocking as Sony don't commit...
Once again, never seen a Sony in a locked cabinet in any local Waterstones... maybe yours is a small one with low staffing or one with many little rooms/cubbyholes that's difficult to cover...
Sony actually preferred to have a book retailer to handle their eReaders, something W H Smiths have been failing at for years... not that it'll make much difference as B&M book (certainly fiction) retail is probably on the way out...
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Hi elcreative - right.....
1} you're very lucky - possibly one of the only stores to be in that position, from my travels anyway.
2) The main hint was that they looked old & tatty - all of them actually, not just the generic Waterstones/Sony ones. Unloved and uncared for was my impression ! And the one 350 was locked in a frame - couldn't handle it, like at Comet or Curry's , when they had them.
3) Being a big ticket number is irrelevent if you haven't got any to sell.
4) Locked cabinets were the way it was done in Waterstones when I first got interested a round 2/3 years ago - not now.
5) It is a big city centre store, well staffed, two of who said they had one guy who really knew about ereaders, and that not many staff had them.
6) Finally, I rang, and simply asked what they were doing with ereaders, as the display looked a bit run down and diminished, and I was interested in Sony. The reply was that Sony stock was now finally being run out, but could still be ordered from their "central hub" - while stocks lasted. They were getting no more Sonys for instore sale.
But, they had a lot of boxes ...............
They were probably only continuing with iRiver & and (?e? something, missed that) readers "as Sony's wouldn't come to an agreement with Waterstones."
I think this experience is going to happen more and more, unless either Sony shove out more stock or models reliably, or come to a sensible agreement with a provider that can sell people one when they want one.
