Why B&N Nook is failing.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There is a lot of handwringing today over lack of variation in the ereader mainstream but the fact is Amazon is nice and comfy with its position as the mainsteam benchmark and nobody else has the pockets or the tech to mount a credible challenge. Not at today's price points. Witness the squealing when Amazon dared introduce the Voyager and the Oasis at higher price points. Even Kobo got grumbles when their new models came in $10 higher.

When basic Kindles can be regularly had for $49 and Paperwhites for $99 there really isn't enough margin (or demand) for competitive products with innovative functions or form factors.

That's what happens when you cut margins from 30% to under 10%. If Amazon had done it first the antitrust guys would've been all over them before you could say "predatory pricing".
But since it was B&N that started it...

Amazon has a lot to be thankful to B&N for.

Don't forget Kobo released their first ereader in May 2010 for $99.99 while Amazon and B&N were at $259.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Don't forget Kobo released their first ereader in May 2010 for $99.99 while Amazon and B&N were at $259.

The Kobo was $149 (still significantly less than Kindle or Nook) when it came out with Amazon dropping the price of the Kindle to $189 about a month later (& the Nook going to $199 in June as well).

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I forgot - I can now just check my calibre database!

I started buying ebooks back on 29 January 2002 (from Baen). I've been buying ebooks for over 15 years!

I guess you must have put your purchase date in the meta data since Calibre didn't come into being until after the Sony PRS-500 was introduced.

I first started buy ebooks from Baen in 1999 when he first introduced them. I believe that I bought a couple of ebooks from peanut press before that. I had some ebooks before that, but I hoisted to jolly roger to get them since there were few if any legit ebook stores at that time.

I think that I've only bought a handful of paper books over the last 5 years. Between font size (I don't like wearing reading glasses), space in my house and the convenience of having all my books at my finger tips, I can't imagine going back to paper either.

[bgalbrecht]

From my perspective, there was nothing wrong with B&N's DRM scheme except that Adobe left it optional in ePub readers, and all of B&N's competitors chose not to include it. What a surprise! Of course, when they changed the key, and discontinued ebook downloaded from the website, and stopped supporting the Windows 7 ebook readers, it made it a lot harder to download the books I had purchased. Not a great move, but I could live with it.

I liked my Nook Simple Touch, and one of the most important features for me was the micro SD slot, as I already purchased enough ebooks from Fictionwise and B&N to fill the internal memory card, but then B&N made the bone-headed move to a new ebook reader that had no micro SD slot, and basically no space for sideloaded books.

Although it took me a long time to make the move to Kobo, partly because I could still get a 10% discount on my books with my credit card cash back bonus B&N gift cards, I eventually realized that a lot of the time B&N is more expensive than either Amazon or Kobo unless the publisher has something on sale at B&N. Kobo's loyalty program makes some of the sale prices cheaper than everyone else, Kobo's price matching allows me to get books on sale when only Amazon is discounting them, and I like my Kobo Glo HD, which I upgraded to a 64 GB reader. I still have some gift card credit at B&N, but it's rare that I bother to go to B&N to buy something. I just wish Kobo sold gift cards in the US and that one or more of my credit cards would have then in their rewards program. I don't know if it's just that B&N's margins are too low for them to include ebooks not covered by the agency pricing, but it's always annoyed me that they've excluded them from their loyalty program and coupons.

I buy way too many ebooks, and I really wanted to stick with B&N, but they're just not very friendly to ebook buyers that aren't willing to paying list price for every ebook. I suppose that made me unprofitable for them and they're probably happy that I'm gone.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

The Kobo was $149 (still significantly less than Kindle or Nook) when it came out with Amazon dropping the price of the Kindle to $189 about a month later (& the Nook going to $199 in June as well).

It may have been the MSRP but the actual price was $100 not long after release. I remember going to Borders that summer and checking out the Kobo for $100.

I bought a Sony instead.

[MGlitch]

B&N started well with one of if not the first front lit ereaders. Their tablet line was of course plagued with bad decisions.

But then BN stopped innovating. They let their eink live fall behind the rest of the market and when the Nook glowlight was released it was catching up to models from Amazon and Kobo that were already a year on the market. Then came the Glowlight Plus which boasted an upgraded screen which I think was on par timewise with the others. However BN opted to take away the SD card slot which wasn't so bad, but they also changed the basic physical design, making the back a metal plate in either rose gold or something similar and the front a textured off white plastic. The metal back made the device slick and hard to hold while the front diminished the brightness of the screen.

They also never really improved in terms of software after the second generation eink Nook. Amazon had whispersync, and X-ray along with easier public library access. Kobo had all sorts of reading experience improvements and tweaks, and Rakuten is still spending money to improve it having purchased Overdrive a bit back and Shelfie more recently.

This is of course after all the screw ups with DRM, downloads from the website, discontinuing support for the apps, never tying Nook in to Nook study.

At this point I think BN should bite the bullet and work out a deal with Kobo selling eBooks through them and selling their devices in stores. Nook is a dying breed which is only serving to be a cash sink for a brick and mortar retailer that can ill afford it

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I guess you must have put your purchase date in the meta data since Calibre didn't come into being until after the Sony PRS-500 was introduced.

Exactly so. Purchase date and price paid in custom columns, from my email records.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

The Kobo was $149 (still significantly less than Kindle or Nook) when it came out with Amazon dropping the price of the Kindle to $189 about a month later (& the Nook going to $199 in June as well).

The Kobo was a stunt: a rebadged two year old Netronix without wireless and a first-gen eink screen.

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kob...Specifications

Limited quantities, too. It was a placeholder for the wireless model that came in later, at over $200. (And that was as low as they could go at the time. They still had stock two years later, IIRC, when they dropped them to $99)

At most you can say they goaded B&N into over-reacting. Except that they were hurt at least as much as anybody since they rely on local partners to move their hardware. If they meant to panic B&N into a money-losing move they succeeded. At the price of killing its US prospects.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

It may have been the MSRP but the actual price was $100 not long after release. I remember going to Borders that summer and checking out the Kobo for $100.

I bought a Sony instead.

The screen, right?
Plus it was flimsy as heck. Thin plastic case.

It was a rush job.

[Alpha o]

On those Nook Tablets B&N was selling - you could root the things and have a cheap decent tablet. Quite a few did. Think the Fire can be rooted, too.

On the others, a lot of people only want one device, so they buy the tablet they like, and install any ereader app on it. If it's in the Play Store, it's fair game for Android, especially if you don't buy books from Amazon or Kobo or at least get them to do plain EPUB possibly via Calibre.

Speaking for myself, I don't want the ads. ANY of them, but I would pay for a good generic ereader with buttons. Amazon sells 2 copies of all readers. One is cheap - you agree to ads. The other is more expensive, no ads. I bought a no ad Paperwhite for the other half, and the first thing that pops up when he turns it on is an AD.

[fjtorres]

The Fire tablets can he rooted but don't really need it because sideloading is allowed. All you need is to enable running applications "from unkown sources" in the settings menu.

Unlike B&N, Amazon has better uses for their staff than fighting their customers over minor stuff.

[AnemicOak]

Another example of why I just don't bother with B&N.

I just got an email from them reminding me I had a $3.14 credit from the last eBook settlement. On the surface this email is a good thing. It's reminding customers about a credit that will expire in a couple of months, but it puzzled me a bit. I was pretty sure I'd used the credit back when it was first issued.

I looked through my B&N purchase emails from around June of last year (since it appears you can only view the last 6 months worth of purchases on the website ) and saw a purchase for a $1.99 (+ tax) book, but it didn't indicate any use of the credit. So I grab a book and add it to my cart and start the checkout process only to find that I really have a $1.01 credit, not $3.14 (I looked high and low to find the credit balance on my account before trying an actual purchase) and it took me a second to see that any credit was being used at all.

So it appears I did use most of the credit on that long ago $1.99 purchase like I thought. Anyway, I did find a $.99 book instead so with tax got a book for $.05, and it's disinfected and in my Calibre library now, but I can easily see someone getting a similar email and assuming the balance is correct only to get a surprise on their credit card statement after the sale when the credit wasn't what they were told it was. The email receipt for the book has no indication that any credit has been used (I did check and my CC was only charged $.05).

I mean the email says "*eBook Settlement credit balance of $3.14 as of 04/28/2017" which implies I have that much to spend. Just seems incompetent to send an email implying the wrong thing. Using their website again after so long away also highlighted how many things I dislike about it.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Exactly so. Purchase date and price paid in custom columns, from my email records.

Clever way to do it. I wish that I had thought to do so. Now it's too much work. I can reconstruct my Amazon Kindle purchases by year (1600 total out of a bit over 3000 books), but it will take some work. The Baen books are pretty straight forward since I started buying the bundles in 1999 and bought almost every month (there were two months that I didn't buy) up to a few years ago (700+) and the rest are either Sony (500+) or Gutenburg.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I wish that I had thought to do so. Now it's too much work.

I too wish I had thought to do so. Although I could do it now I'm not willing to put in the work.



On the email from B&N, I just got another one...

We are sorry! We mistakenly sent you an email on April 29th, 2017, advising you that there was a remaining balance on your eBook Settlement Credit. This email was sent to you due to a system error. Please disregard and we apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused you.

We look forward to your next visit to Barnes & Noble.

Sincerely,

Barnes & Noble Customer Support Team

...it's not that I didn't have a balance, I did, it's that my balance was reported incorrectly.

[MGlitch]

Thanks for reminding me, I had a balance from that as well which I'd forgotten about. I wasn't sure if I'd used any of it, thus preserving it, or not.

Which leads me to another reason BN is failing. Their mobile website is lackluster and this is after several facelifts.

ETA I have a balance but it's going to take some hunting to find something that won't go over it