World, Writing, Wealth discussion
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Amazon Bookstore Opens in San Diego
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Marie wrote: "Apparently there is already a brick and mortar Amazon bookstore in Seattle. I had no idea! Thoughts about this?http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/b......"
great find!
sound business move. according to the article, they haven't abandoned their internet business model but supporting it w/a physical presence.
What a chutzpah, it appears we weren't invited for inauguration -:)Yeah, Tara, could be in response.... Plausible connection..
Should I offer them to open the 1-st store overseas, before it went global like Domino's and McDonald? -:)
Tara wrote: "Could Amazon brick and mortar be in response to this: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com..."interesting article . . . wish more could be done to reduce Amazon's growing monopoly
The future will be interesting...yjis also makes me feel really good about not being exclusive with Amazon. Also really glad I've got psperbacks out lol.
Tara wrote: "Could Amazon brick and mortar be in response to this: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com..."Nice one, Tara :) I am watching all this unfold with interest!
I agree, it's a smart move, Amazon covering all the bases. I think BN is shooting themselves in the foot by refusing a big pub house imprint. Buyers will just go elsewhere. What BN should do is improve their online ebook marketing capability. Also there were a lot of problems with Nook and users that liked it got ticked off. Business strategy and defining what a company is all about is necessary for survival. Before Borders closed, I sometimes bought books there, but when it came to their online capability it was not a user-friendly experience. Without it, they didn't last unfortunately.
I think they're trying to twat Amazon's growth (successfully or not)To be honest, I shiver at the amount of power Amazon is gathering to itself. Now I will admit that I do love shopping on Amazon (what mom doesn't like getting a month's worth of nappies for £10) but I feel in the next 10 years or so, when they have successfully squashed their competitors, there won't be anyone else to oppose their reign.
Reminds me of a strategy I heard Nigeria's Dangote used. Apparently he sold cement at cost price and effectively drove his competitors bankrupt. That's how he became Africa's richest man. Thankfully he's not a demon and hasn't done anything demonic with his powers . . . but who knows what future Amazon is capable of?
SegilolaI agree re Amazon's footprint.
M.L.
Barnes & Noble 100% needs to overhaul its online capability but I very much admire what they did in regards to Amazon. They didn't shoot themselves in the foot because Amazon was trying to jerk them around by prohibiting them digital access to its titles. Basically they were using B&N to advertise for them and pay for the privilege while shutting them out of the multi-millions they could have earned from digital books. I would have done the same thing. Amazon basically wanted competitors to babysit the print titles while they took the digital copies out to dinner lol and had everyone else pick up the tab. A lot of retailers are angry with Amazon for this very reason.
Segilola wrote: "Apparently he sold cement at cost price and effectively drove his competitors bankrupt..."Don't know the facts, but as you describe it, this may be borderline of 'dumping' - a questionable business practice condemned by WTO and prohibited by some countries...
With most of my online purchases I've switched from Amazon and Ebay to Aliexpress, because on most things they offer free delivery. And I don't like the need to purchase 'prime' status..
Actually it's the opposite of dumping. What Segilola describes is what Wal-Mart does. They sell shoes, for example, imported from Asia at an irresistable price until no shoe store in town can compete. Once they all go out of business guess what? Wal-Mart raises the price of their shoes. Dumping would be if Wal-Mart bought shoes from Asia, sells what they can and then 3-4 years later sells the now out of style shoes in Haiti for $1.50 less than the lowest Haitian wholesaler sells them for. The company is basically enjoying macimum profit while cutting the throats of countries already hanging on by a thread. They lack the ethics and decency to do the right thing which is to write off the loss on their taxes and donate the old shoes or even pay for recycling. Even worse they figure the unsold merchandise into profit-loss projections which gives shareholders a false impression of profits, causing more people to invest/increase shares. Prohibited and unethical.
That's the definition from Mirriam-Websters:'the act of one that dumps; especially : the selling of goods in quantity at below market price'
I think both examples are problematic, because an organization uses its financial strength to last longer than competitors without making profit, thus to choke them and afterwards, having a monopoly, to choke the customers with whatever prices it wishes...
I use ebay. They are much less expemsive, almost always have free shipping and I have the option to buy used items. I am not a consumerist and try really hard to repurpose when I can. If I need a flower pot for my sister's deck I see no need to buy a new one. I'd rather find a used one that originally cost $38 and pay $12 for it instead of paying $15 for a brand new, cheaply made one from Asia. And even with brand new items I pay about 1/3 what I would pay on Amazon or retail. Bulk wholesalers love ebay and I pay less because there is no brick-and-mortar middleman.
Yeah, I guess within US you have much more options for free delivery... I'm international/long distance for every site, so the delivery costs become a decisive factor -:)
NikCompletely agree. I refuse to condemn people who shop at Wal-Mart because so many people can't afford to shop elsewhere. I only shop there when I am in the south and I have absolutely no other choice. Otherwise i just grit my teeth and pay more from local merchants.
I think no customer likes to pay more for the same product. The viable competition is supposed to ensure that manufacturers/sellers make reasonable profit, while customers enjoy competitive prices. Any tactic aimed at monopolization of a certain market: geographical, industrial, whatever is problematic and is not in the best interest of no one. In most countries there are anti-trust or anti-monopoly authorities, but in many they behave toothlessly
Nik wrote: "I think no customer likes to pay more for the same product. The viable competition is supposed to ensure that manufacturers/sellers make reasonable profit, while customers enjoy competitive prices . Any tactic aimed at monopolization of a certain market: geographical, industrial, whatever is problematic and is not in the best interest of no one. In most countries there are anti-trust or anti-monopoly authorities, but in many they behave toothlessly "That's like politicians in general and corporations
ps I'm not the most knowledgeable person re Dangote, I think I heard/read that's what he did. So not saying he definitely did
No worries, it's not about him specifically and we are not gonna accuse anyone in anything basing on hearsay -:) So, I hope he's a nice dude and decent businessman
Well, um. *blush*. I'm an Amazon fanatic. I have a really hard time with shopping physically (especially when I had surgery on both legs) so I do all the shopping that I can, online. Ebay used to be where most of my shopping happened, but I have switched primarily to Amazon. I save a ton of money with Prime (free 2 day shipping) on everything from textbooks to sending Christmas presents to my friends and family spread across the USA. I'm also a LEGO collector, and Amazon is the best place to get the discontinued sets that I want :). Ebay is great for really obscure used things as a seller or a buyer, but when I am buying new, I almost always go to Amazon.
Prime has saved me money as an author as well. I can ship paperbacks directly to giveaway winners at no shipping expense to me, the winners get the books fast, and I get royalties and a boost in rankings. It seems win-win to me. I don't really buy my own books in bulk from Createspace anyway, so I use Prime. You could say that I am very spoiled from 2 day shipping! I don't use the instant streaming service from Prime though (even though they keep reminding me that I can haha). I use Netflix. So I don't know how much Prime is competition for Netflix, as much as they'd like to be. Netflix has a better search imo and is more user friendly.
I also have Kindle Unlimited which has saved me money on books, especially the ones I just want to try. If we, as authors, enroll our books in just the lending library, we get royalties when a customer buys our book and lends it to their friend! Where else can an author get paid and boosted ranks for that? To be honest, I think my Davenport House books are lent out a lot because I can't understand why my page reads get randomly high on some days. If my calculations are correct, there over 1.5 million Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Do I want to make my books available to 1.5 million readers who have already paid money to read KU books? Chyeah!
We briefly had a Borders bookstore here in my city, and we've had Hastings for years...but that is closing for good, which is really sad. Hastings was a geek and bookworm paradise! The closest Barnes and Noble is across the state line so I can't get down there as often as I would like. I think most people agree that there is something magical about being in a bookstore and flipping through the pages of a real book and smelling the new book smell.
I would go into one of these Amazon bookstores if it was near me, but I wonder if I would be put off by their redirecting me online for everything when I already know I can do it all online :D. Is paying at the register with an Amazon account as awkward as it sounds?
We'll ask someone who actually goes to Amaz physical store to share experience-:)I guess soon we'll have rumors running that with so and so reviews your books gets into the physical store and with a little more - on the best stand near the register-:)
I imagine a lot of companies are mad at Amazon, but unless it results in a competitive strategy, then it's like a swimmer who thinks he will beat Michael Phelps by grabbing his foot when he swims past in the hopes of slowing him down, instead of learning how to swim better/faster. (probably won't catch him that way either, but it's more positive).I love Prime, it saves time finding things. Otherwise I would have to call around, circle through various IVR systems, be put on hold, and then get cut off, go there, and surprise, oh we don't have it.
It's kind of the way business operates. I had Word Perfect, but with MS, their Word program conveniently gobbled up WP and voila, there is Word. It's kind of sad business is so cutthroat, but I don't see it changing.
I would love to go to a brick & mortar Amazon store and see how it's set up. Who knows, maybe they will take over the local BN and that is pretty close. I do go there and it's kind of cool to browse in-store, however, their discounts online vs. in-store are not consistent. If it's discounted online it should be the same at the store.
If someone told me years ago that we'd have Amazon Bookstores but no more Border's or Blockbuster's I'd have thought they were crazy but here we are and Amazon has made mince meat of both.Would I ever step foot into an Amazon bookstore? Of course I would. Would I ask if they could stock my books even though I am almost certain the response would be no? You bet your @$$ I would! I'm not intimidated by them and if anything I'd do what I read this one guy did which was walk into a B&N with his book and took a picture of himself with his book as if he found it on the shelf of the store.
Just FYI, I opened a similar thread to this one in the SIA group :). The more opinions, the merrier!
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/b...