Quote:
Originally Posted by vans
Is it normal for Waterstones to charge more than the cost of the paperback for an eBook?
Are Kindle normally cheaper than Waterstones for ebooks?
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It's not uncommon for the ebook to be more expensive at the moment because neither retailers nor publishers really have understood what's happening with ebook and publishing.
The paperback has an RRP of £8.99. Waterstones probably get a 50% discount on that price, so they pay £4.49 the distributor, and then sell it on at £5.39, making £0.90, or 20% on their cost price.
The ebook has an RRP of £9.38. Waterstones are selling at £7.50. 1/6th of both is VAT, so the actual price is £7.82/£6.25. Waterstones probably get a 30% discount on the RRP, so they pay the distributor £5.47, sell it on at £6.25, and make £0.78, or 12.5% on their cost price.
I see WHSmith are selling the ebook at £6.10, or £5.08 excluding the VAT. Either they're getting a better than 30% discount, or they're selling at a loss.
Amazon are selling the paperback at £3.49 and the ebook at £3.14. While it's possible that it's a loss-leader, I suspect they have much better deals with the distributors, or perhaps are buying direct from the publishers. It's just possible that Amazon are getting a 65% discount on the paperback, paying £3.15 per book and selling for £3.49. They probably also have contracts in place requiring the ebook to be cheaper than the cheapest new paper edition.
In general I've found that the prices at Amazon for ebooks are better than at WH Smiths or Waterstones, unless there's a very special offer going.
There is a general problem in the UK in that paper books are zero rated, but ebooks attract standard rate (20%) VAT. Well, except that Amazon ebooks only attract 15% VAT, since they're based outside the UK.