That $4 cup of coffee...

[Man Eating Duck]

Woah, this thread is all over the place

Regarding ebook prices at Amazon, they are set with one thing only in mind: Maximising profits for Amazon. They are very, very good at finding the price which will bring them the most income. They have, after all, a lot of experience and a huge db of sales to analyse. They might even use some sort of self-learning neural net thingy to do this, as an expert system might miss parameters which would otherwise be hard to pin down, like season trends for individual authors in individual countries.

I'm guessing about the details here, and the actual processes for this are naturally kept a close secret, but you get my meaning. Incidentally this probably also maximises the profits for the publisher and author (albeit only on sales through Amazon; very low Amazon prices might hurt sales through other venues). Most authors get a percentage of sales income as royalties.

From a customer perspective this leads to some strange consequenses. A licence for downloading a file which might get cancelled at the whim of Amazon, and certainly will become obsolete as their DRM servers go offline sometime in the future, can cost more than a paper copy shipped to your door. The production cost of a paper book including stocking and transport arguably exceeds distribution costs of an ebook, and this does not matter at all.

All that matters is how much the average customer is willing to pay for each version. As it turns out from the evidence of prices, people are in some cases willing to pay more for a Kindle book, probably because of convenience and reading habits. On this forum I'm probably not alone in preferring an ebook version

The same thing is the case for regional pricing... it irks me no end, and is a fossil in the age of the internet. To make matters worse all my Amazon recommendation emails contain the low, low American prices... I'm actually in a support chat with Amazon on that one right now. But that is probably taking the thread off-topic again

[Sydney's Mom]

I don't like Starbucks, and save it for days I forget to eat breakfast or bring my lunch. For ebooks, I have such a TBR pile (approaching 5k), that I can wait for the price to come down on anything. But I feel like a kid before Christmas about the Amazon event tomorrow.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by ScotiaBurrell

It's not hard. Just ask for a medium or large coffee. Thats the vernacular for...drip coffee.

If you want a bit more flavor ask for an Americano. Similar to drip coffee, but they make themfrom espresso and water, not coffee grounds and water. Its a bit richer and more flavorful. About 35 cents more.

I am on week 3 of a 4 week coffee and cola fast. It was supposed to have been all caffeine -- but I needed something to keep me from losing it so I started drinking green tea. Now I just need to find...a flavorful one.

I will not go back to a everyday coffee habit again. The difference is dramatic.

Personally, I cannot stand Americanos; I find they combine the worst aspects of drinking hot water and straight espresso with none of the strengths of either.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Personally, I cannot stand Americanos; I find they combine the worst aspects of drinking hot water and straight espresso with none of the strengths of either.

Yeap, it's either late, or expresso.
And what's really nice is a Starbucks lattte AND a book to read while drinking it.

And some points in the article posted by the OP are rather valid. You're more prone to pay $$ for a service when you know what it will look like. You'll hesitate less to spend your bucks for a book from an author you've already read.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Yeap, it's either late, or expresso.
And what's really nice is a Starbucks lattte AND a book to read while drinking it.

And some points in the article posted by the OP are rather valid. You're more prone to pay $$ for a service when you know what it will look like. You'll hesitate less to spend your bucks for a book from an author you've already read.

And as for the $4 cup of coffee epithet, I find it ineffective at convincing anyone they're a hypocrite.

At a coffee shop I also pay for the ambience, the service, the wifi connectivity, the "vacation" aspect of having a coffee with a friend (although I often prefer to hang out alone or with my husband).

I also find myself never going for the exaggerated "coffee" so for me it's more like a $2 coffee nursed for an hour at a place with wifi.... works for me.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

And as for the $4 cup of coffee epithet, I find it ineffective at convincing anyone they're a hypocrite.

At a coffee shop I also pay for the ambience, the service, the wifi connectivity, the "vacation" aspect of having a coffee with a friend (although I often prefer to hang out alone or with my husband).

I also find myself never going for the exaggerated "coffee" so for me it's more like a $2 coffee nursed for an hour at a place with wifi.... works for me.

In the end it's a not about a "fair" price. Some stuff sell at $$$ more than it's value, other stuff will not sell even at the price where the seller makes little profit, because the customer won't feel like it's his money worth.

[speakingtohe]

I agree with both Spindlegirl and EowynCarter.

It is percieved value.

If something is a treat I tend to pay more, but if I pay more than I want to spend I enjoy it less.

I enjoy a coffee out if it is with a friend, my roommates spend $10-$20 a day on Starbucks coffee (more than $300 a month) and drink it on the bus etc. Each to his own.

Helen

[voracious71]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Watch this

I tried to watch the whole thing, but had to shut it down. It was giving me flashbacks to when I worked in the Border's cafe years ago.

Ms. Swan is funny though.