ROI for E-Readers?

[IJnstijn_II]

Hi all,

as we all know investing in an E-Reader is quite a step to make, especially if you're wanting to have an ILiad or DR1000S from IRex.

I do have the feeling that it does make a R(eturn) O(f) I(nvestment) but I'm not getting the numbers to see it in a the formula.

So far I've gotten to these numbers:

Black and White print (on real paper, A4-size) costs €0,01
Color Print (on real paper-A4 size) costs €0,04

An Iliad costs €599,-

Now, not accounting for electricity, to return your investment, you would have to read 59.900 prints on your Iliad instead of printing them on paper. Even if you print 100 pages a day, that would be almost 2 years before 100% ROI.

I am wanting to try to get companies to use the e-readers, but so far I'm not getting to a satisfactory caculation to sell this to them...

Any help? What do I forget?

IJsbrand Schipperus

[Shaggy]

I don't think you're really going to get a financial ROI on an E-Reader. They're more about convenience than they are about saving money.

[Floeee]

i think you will get the roi when you get older and have backache after carrying hundreds of a4 prints with you every day

[Bilbo1967]

Not really a ROI, but let's not forget in these eco-concious times the fact that paper (trees) are not being used.

Any company that could really demonstrate a truly 'paperless office' would, I am sure, gain a lot of customers through their perceived green credentials. The problem with the concept of a paperless office is the non-portability of documents on a PC (even a laptop). E-books could go some way to solving that.

[DDHarriman]

Hi

Talking about ROI touches my heart - my major is business administration so…

Concerning eBook readers one does have several problems here and they begin with, per example, usefulness…
How much money do one puts into having 100 books/documents/what ever together in the same moment in a device (a book is a device as any other) weighting less the 200/300 grams?
Or how much money one puts on the space occupied (now and in the future) between a 500/1000K file and a 600/700 hardback?
And so on…

So, today, ROI does not apply to eBook readers.

Maybe in the future when the hardware will be of almost of no concern (a la inkjet printers of today, when most cost nearly the same as the set of cartridges they have inside) one can check the ROI of it.

Still, a good measure is… literature.
If one does read it… how much time the difference between the cost of a eBook versus the cost of a print book (something, maybe like a eBook can cost 50% to 75% of it’s print sibling) will take to justify the cost of a eBook reader (even at today costs)?

For me, my (now!) 20 month Cybook, who cost me 405 euros with it’s cover and the sending chargers, has paid itself several times…
But, hey it’s just me… in the equation I have also to say it has been used as a a demonstration tool, class digital libraries example (I’m a University teacher too), company tool (I have a company too), etc…, so… it’s ROI, for me was less then 3 months, but even if I did not used it for business proposes, I had it (as I say above) break even more then a year ago.

Best Regards,

[pwarren]

in rough AUD from my last years worth of receipts:

second hand iLiad: $640
Average paperback cost: $28
Average eBook cost: $12

So that's 40 books until the savings from paperbacks have paid for the iliad. This drops to 23 books if I acquire my ebooks from torrents.

I'm not a student of any sort of academic economics, but I know that's why I bought an eBook reader, paperback prices in Australia are just ridiculous

[yokos]

All needed textbooks [...] fit in my backback. This is priceless.

[parryl]

ROI more in term of management of print outs , do you have any classified documents management problems ?

[IJnstijn_II]

Just a brainstorm here...

Putting all together...

- I would have to put a price on the storage space books occupy.
- I could also try to see which technical handbooks can be bought digitally and what the price difference is with the hard-paper version.
- Take into account the printouts people don't make anymore.
- Training books in digital version instead of hard-paper.

We might have a ROI on the E-Reader in say 2 years..?

I think this comes close to being a 'reasonable' investment. Still it's going to be hard to convince managers this way...

Anyone got a bright idea? Where is the big return for an e-reader if you don't read literature?

IJsbrand Schipperus

[DixieGal]

At this point, an ebook reader is still an expensive luxury item. And frankly, I would never recommend them for daily use in my office. These people drop their pagers into the toilets on a regular basis, so I can just imagine their destructive powers against a fairly breakable device.

[rhari79]

My iliad helps me in saving space immensely.
I cant imagine carrying more than 2-3 books from my 100+(i think) collection from back home while I travel outside.
Also I had one hell of a time trying to shift my books collection when I had to shift my house.
I also feel its slightly greener to read novels as ebooks rather than as a paperback. Novels are generally read once and mostly forgotten later, so buying a paper book wastes space somewhere.
And with the iliad, it is even quite convenient to read tech books.

[zacheryjensen]

This is an inconveniently focused question. The prospect of ROI on a single part of a whole system is not a very useful portrait of financial reasoning. Take a look at the entire system, assuming from the point of view of a business and you can easily forget that given a single common standard format (even if it's nasty PDF) you already have numerous devices that can read these files perfectly fine, there is no need for additional hardware, just *FREE* software installed.

So a minor IT cost for the vast majority of recipients. In reality, this software is already there.

The policies about retention are a bigger concern. You need to consider the costs of somehow magically preventing people from taking printed documents, of already existing digital ones btw, out of the office. The costs of shredding services, etc. You can try to stop sending files out of the system with filters on the mail server. This is pretty effective for the average worker but won't actually stop anyone intent on violating the rules. Of course, neither would real paper.

It's important to note at this point that the files of interest, the actual documents, are already in digital form in the modern office. It's a trivial issue to make them into PDF if that's necessary but with the right reader device, it's not necessary.

So asking about the ROI on a reader, well, I think this is the same prospect for someone deciding they might need an ultraportable laptop for business purposes. Sure, they can get by with their 8 pound monster laptop but it's often not desirable. So you can lug around and read on a laptop or you can consider the pros of reading on a much lighter device which is better for your eyes. Did you consider the health costs of slumping over a desk vs. sitting comfortably with a light device in hand? Did you consider the eye strain issues? I think those concerns might actually outweigh all others over time for any employees that must spend a lot of time reading documents.

But ultimately a reader device is only a very small part of an overall strategy for digital documents replacing paper documents. In my company, we have a very strong push against printing. It's essentially a significant error of judgement, and warrants discipline, to print things when it's not necessary. It's a policy implemented for "green" initiatives, more than money saving. I imagine not having to replace toner, paper, or pay for costly printer repairs on a regular basis is nice though.

Now personally, since I have to read many documents as part of my job, and even printing 2 pages per side double sided isn't acceptable for a 300 page manual, I am on the prowl for a suitable e-reader. I have enjoyed my personal reader for novels but 6" is too small for tolerable long form technical reading. I don't think of this reader as a business expense, so the ecosystem at work won't see it as part of their overall ROI, but personally I will see the health benefits mentioned before because reading on a laptop is a fresh hell I wouldn't wish upon anyone, and my favorite places to hang out in the office and out are often sun-drenched, so that e-Ink is really quite pretty and easy on the eyes.

Anyway, that meandering message was mainly meant to say that it's not important to see the ROI on a reader specifically but on the entire process of business as it's affected by a total conversion to digital-only document policies.