New Study Upends Notions About Ereader Adoptions

[stonetools]

Some eye-openers here:

[QUOTE]It turns out all of our preconceived notions about e-reader adoption was wrong. When you dig into the data about where Kindles are actually bought and sold, the most “cosmopolitan” cities in America are soundly beaten by mid-sized cities in the Midwest and South. Moreover, our data suggests that dedicated e-readers aren't very popular devices anywhere. In the landscape of consumer electronics, e-readers barely register.

[/QUOTE

Conclusion;

By this heuristic, it seems likely that paper books will be 100% replaced by e-books. At the onset, we assumed that cities like New York and San Francisco would be leading this charge into the future, but we were wrong. Instead, it’s the college towns and and mid-sized cities that are the vanguards of e-reading. Even still, dedicated e-reading devices aren’t even that popular despite their head start in the market versus the iPad. If the future of reading is electronic, it may well be completely dominated by Apple.

LINK

Seriously?

Discuss

[Rob Lister]

I don't know where to start.

our data suggests that dedicated e-readers aren't very popular devices anywhere. In the landscape of consumer electronics, e-readers barely register.

?

I'm not sure what the analysis is trying to analyze.

[murraypaul]

I'm not sure why the fact that tablets are selling far better than eInk devices should be a surprise to anyone?

[JonathanH]

Their "data" appears to consist of screen-scraping advertized product prices from local ads in different cities. Which of course completely ignores the fact that most Kindles are sold BY MAIL from Amazon. And explains why their neat little graph rates the Nook as "more popular" than the Kindle: it probably is, when you ONLY look at the number of stores advertizing it for sale.

tl;dr: their study is garbage.

[Ninjalawyer]

Greater adoption in smaller cities could be because there are fewer local bookstore options. Amazon is great, but sometimes you just want a book now and in a smaller city, there might not be the option to get it now because your bookstores don't carry it. More cosmopolitan cities still have a bigger variety of bookstores.

Dedicated ereaders might be less popular compared to tablets, but I'm not sure what that has to do with Apple. Do people who use the iPad generally use iBooks? Or do they download any number of competing apps and read their books that way? I have both an ereader and a tablet, and I just don't see them as being in competition with each other.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

Dedicated ereaders might be less popular compared to tablets, but I'm not sure what that has to do with Apple. Do people who use the iPad generally use iBooks? Or do they download any number of competing apps and read their books that way? I have both an ereader and a tablet, and I just don't see them as being in competition with each other.

If light readers have a tablet with the Kindle/Nook/Kobo apps, they are less likely to go out and get another device which performs the same function.
For people who read a lot, the dedicated device might offer enough advantages to get both.

[abookreader]

I guess he's trying to be humorous with that faux-shock at the discovery that people in Kentucky know how to read and buy books and book related objects, but I still find him rather annoying.

He does seem to be a day late and dollar short with his astounding discovery though. The "news" that those far outside the boundaries of typical technology consumers adapted dedicated eReaders quite readily is about 4 years old at best. Oprah saw the potential of the digital reader and her demographics quite a far time back. Maybe if he wants a true feeling for what is going on outside of San Francisco, he should have been watching Oprah. Hey here's a hint to him. People who live quite distance from shopping centers also really like internet shopping. Yes! They have computers and credit cards and they know how to browse too!!!!!

And yes, as has been discussed to the death, tablets outsell dedicated readers. I think the reason why that is so is quite obvious but maybe it is a sudden understanding to him. In San Francisco. the hot bed of cultural revolution and sophistication.

[QuantumIguana]

That was a pretty bad article. It started out making assumptions and assumed that the assumptions are our rather than the author's. I often find it a chore to talk to people who don't read books, so call me an elite if you wish. But only a small number of people assume that those who read e-books are more literate than those who read paper books, or vice versa. It would be no surprise if Kindles are more in demand in cities with less bookstore options, because the harder it is to get to a bookstore, the more appealing an e-reader is.

If the study is only measuring sales in stores, then it is fatally flawed. It would then leave out those who buy their Kindles via the internet. Take a look at the caption of the graph: "Kindles for Sale as % of Total Items for Sale in That City". What sort of gibberish statistic is that? If there are more things to purchase in a city, the percentage of sales for Kindles would decrease without one less Kindle being sold. Ask instead what percentage of percentage of people have e-readers.

To compare the Kindle to the X-Box makes no sense, they aren't in the same market at all. Comparisons to the iPad don't matter either, because although you can read books on an iPad, few are going to get it just to read books. The decreasing price of e-readers isn't a sign of weakness, but of strength. The price decreases because with increasing demand, the product can be delivered more cheaply. The Kindle DX remains expensive, because the demand for that device is low. The iPad keeps the high price by adding power and functionality. An e-reader doesn't need that, it just reads books.

I've looked at the prices of used Kindles (and other e-readers) and they seem to retain their value. That is an indication of the strength of a product. If the price on the used market is low, that indictes people don't like their device as much.

The article doesn't look at the percentage of people who have Kindles and doesn't look at the e-book market. iPad sales aren't relevant, whis is relevant is the share of the e-book maket that each device has.

[RHWright]

Not sure what they're trying to go for here. And the iPad vs. ereader thing doesn't seem a good comparison.

Now, an interesting study of consumer behavior, IMO, would be set up along these lines:

Find a group of soon-to-purchase consumers that strongly identify themselves as readers and plan to do a substantial amount of daily reading on the device. I.e. those for whom the reading function is a major factor in the purchase decision.

Then see how many go with a primarily reading device (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, etc), how many with what I call an expanded use device (Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, etc), and how many choose a more general multi-use device (iPad, Android tablet, etc).

Some data on initial estimated spend versus final purchase price might be nice too.

My gut says those for whom the reading is a top need for the device are choosing dedicated devices, especially at a lower budget. Those for whom reading is less important and/or who have a higher budget in mind are probably going toward tablets.

It would be nice to see data on that. I could be totally wrong.

[JonathanH]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

If the study is only measuring sales in stores, then it is fatally flawed. It would then leave out those who buy their Kindles via the internet. Take a look at the caption of the graph: "Kindles for Sale as % of Total Items for Sale in That City". What sort of gibberish statistic is that? If there are more things to purchase in a city, the percentage of sales for Kindles would decrease without one less Kindle being sold. Ask instead what percentage of percentage of people have e-readers.

It's not even "measuring sales in stores". It's "measuring items advertized as for sale in stores". And when do you advertize things? When they're NOT selling well...

As a study, it's worse than useless. And the really sad part is that they presumably published the study in an attempt to make their business (which is all about exploiting their price database) look GOOD.

[JonathanH]

Originally Posted by RHWright

It would be nice to see data on that. I could be totally wrong.

The best recent survey that could be mined for that data would be the Pew survey released a couple of weeks ago. These guys actually DO understand statistics. They also used a phone-based survey, so they could cross-correlate to get regional statistics. Sadly they haven't published any results from that

(From the link, go to the "Report Materials" in the upper right to download the full PDF of the report)

[plib]

If the rest of their research is as good as their $55 stated price for a Kindle Touch then I'm definitely convinced!

Edit: I think, in terms of other conversations I've been having this morning, this is not a "quality" survey. Must be an indie.

[Andrew H.]

The study is complete garbage. At first glance, some of the garbage is hidden under other garbage, so it's harder to see.

All of their data comes from Craigslist. Not from Amazon, not from sales in retail establishments. From Craigslist.

The "most literate" cities, then, are the ones where the greatest number of Kindles are offered for sale on CL, according to this analysis. Why not reverse the list and conclude that the cities with the most Kindles on CL are the *least* literate cities, since they are clearly not keeping their Kindles?

Comparisons to sales of Xboxes are likewise pointless - that reflects the popularity of reading more than anything else. Which should not be news to anyone.

[QuantumIguana]

It just shows that you have to look closely, it is easy to be fooled by nice looking graphics. Their graphics look good until you ask "what does this mean?" The data is even worse than I thought. This would get an F in a Statistics class. They put a nonsense graph purporting to show that some cities are more "e-literate" than others, and them with that useless data produce more useless graphs. I agree, more used Kindles on Craigslist could just as easily mean that the people in that city were LESS inclined to read e-books, as they are selling their e-readers. It simply means nothing.

The data is available for how many people own Kindles, Nooks and iPads. So is sales data for e-books. It wouldn't be difficult to track the sales of e-books by platform to see if there are any trends. This crappy data makes me suspicious of any data that website produces.

[jgaiser]

And the rest of their price guides are equally as useless. And they *love* Craigslist. Three dudes and a computer.