Is Waterstones profiteering?

[charlieperry]

Profiteering, price gouging, call it what you want, I think that Waterstone's have taken advantage of the recent surge of interest in ebooks and decided to gouge the consumer with overpriced ebooks. It's not just Waterstone's, it's the publisher as well but they're both equally responsible for trying to rip us all off. Dymocks do the same here in Australia.

[HarryT]

No, I don't believe so. It's a free market - nobody is forced to buy books from them if they don't wish to do so.

Books have traditionally been more expensive in the UK than in the US. Waterstones' books seem reasonably priced compared to UK printed editions.

If you believe that their prices are uncompetitive, don't buy from them!

[Tommo43]

If you believe that their prices are uncompetitive, don't buy from them!
Harry You should get angry if someone is ripping you off. and I don't think that comparing them the the cost of the hard stuff is a usefull guide. We all know that amazon coming to the uk has already forced the cost of hard copies down and if you don't like the cost of a new book you can always get it cheaper on the second hand market Abe books
I don't know if this is relevant but Rex have opened their e book pages for the iliad and on first glance they not only to have a large selection but seem to be reasonably priced

Regards

Bob.

[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by Tommo43

You should get angry if someone is ripping you off.

And I would, except I am not giving them my money so how can they be ripping me off?

Vote with your wallet. Vote against overpriced books. Vote against DRMed books. And be vocal: let them know you will not buy from them under these conditions and detail why.

prof·it·eer
n. One who makes excessive profits on goods in short supply.

intr.v. prof·it·eered, prof·it·eer·ing, prof·it·eers
To make excessive profits on goods in short supply.

The goods are not in short supply.

[HarryT]

I just take the view, I'm afraid Bob, that there are so many alterative places to buy eBooks from that if any one store charges silly prices, the only end result is that people will shop elsewhere and they'll be forced to either lower their prices or go out of business. It's therefore a "self-correcting" problem.

[jayne80]

on average they are about the same as Whsmith online, some are cheaper some more expensive, however given the choice out of the two of them i would choose whsmith, the website is better designed, easier to use and usually has the choice of .lit .pdf or .prc.

However given the option of using whsmith or booksonboard i'll take booksonboard, though there are a couple of books i have had to buy in the UK as they weren't available elsewhere.

[Richard Herley]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I just take the view, I'm afraid Bob, that there are so many alterative places to buy eBooks from that if any one store charges silly prices, the only end result is that people will shop elsewhere and they'll be forced to either lower their prices or go out of business. It's therefore a "self-correcting" problem.

Agreed -- which begs the question, "What is the point of Waterstone's?" as far as ebooks are concerned. Waterstone's has a chain of physical bookstores for selling physical books: their middle-man position there is understandable.

Moreover, publishers themselves are terrified of the coming ebook revolution, especially for fiction. Their two principal (and largely indispensable) activities are promotion and distribution. The net takes care of the latter; and I must say I have not noticed overmuch promotion of ebooks by the big publishing houses. This begs a second question, much like the first ...

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Richard Herley

Agreed -- which begs the question, "What is the point of Waterstone's?" as far as ebooks are concerned. Waterstone's has a chain of physical bookstores for selling physical books: their middle-man position there is understandable.

Moreover, publishers themselves are terrified of the coming ebook revolution, especially for fiction. Their two principal (and largely indispensable) activities are promotion and distribution. The net takes care of the latter; and I must say I have not noticed overmuch promotion of ebooks by the big publishing houses. This begs a second question, much like the first ...

a similar question can be asked about Borders in the USA. It is also a chain book store that sells the Sony reader. I suspect they are looking at long term survival and see eBooks as a significant portion of the future. Certainly pBooks will be around but people want choices so why not. I suspect the one thing that hasn't really happened yet is the eBook portion of the offering.

I envision Kiosks will appear in retail stores that can be used to purchase eBooks for your device much like Kiosks have appeared for digital cameras to make traditional paper copies of your pictures. A Kiosk would be a perfect solution providing the ability to sell eBooks and then directly load them on your device, or perhaps an SD card that can be subsequently plugged into your device.

These are likely to appear in bookstores and retail stores that sell eBook readers. You can only sell the reader once but to get ongoing customer sales you need to be able to sell eBooks.

Dale

[Lemurion]

I hope they're profiting, but I doubt they're profiteering.