Cape & Islands News

Big price differences for books between eBook sellers

E-Books:  The Devil’s in the Details
Customers Stunned by Price Differences, Customer Service between Kindle and Nook

By Walter Brooks and staff

This reporter owns both tablets but hasn't used the BN nook on left since getting his Amazon Fire on right.You’ve just set up your new Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet or Amazon Kindle Fire – and now it’s time to go shopping for e-books.  Depending on which e-reader platform you chose, you might be in for a bit of a surprise when you start to fill your reader with books.  And then there’s the “customer service experience” if you have problems with your device.

“Barnes and Noble basically told me
to go f--- myself!”

Last week a friend of ours in the software industry mentioned a huge price discrepancy between a book for the Nook versus the same book for the Kindle platform. Our friend wanted to purchase a technical book called Microsoft Expression Blend 4 Unleashed by Brennon Williams.  Barnes and Noble listed the book at $33.59 but he found the book listed at only $18 for the Amazon Kindle. 

Suspecting this was an honest pricing error, the techie emailed B&N customer service.  He was stunned by their response, reproduced below.

Barnes & Noble offers very competitive pricing on many items, resulting in the best value for our customers.  However, we do not honor requests to match the prices of our competitors for individual products, and we are unable to adjust the price of your order. 

Our friend ended his story with the addendum, “Barnes and Noble basically told me to go F--- myself !” 

The company where our correspondent works recently equipped all of their tech staff with company provided Nook Color e-readers.  As the company president told Cape Cod Today this morning, “Nook Color was the best e-reader available when we bought them last January.  With pricing discrepancies like this – and BN’s unwillingness to match prices – I believe we made mistake going with Barnes and Noble.” The nook tablet costs $249 and the Kindle Fire cists $199.

“Agency Pricing” Works… Sometimes

Vote in our Poll:
Which tablet are you getting
or giving this Christmas?With the dawn of the iPad came the Steve Jobs-imposed “agency pricing” model.  Under “agency pricing” major books publishers now set their own e-book prices and receive a percentage of that price on each e-book sold. 

Agency Pricing works, mostly.  When we searched the four major e-book providers’ web sites we found that most books on the current best seller lists are priced identically across all four sites.

The problem seems to be more with books that are not on the best seller list and never will be – computer books, gardening, cooking and other titles that might not be on most people’s wish list.  The further away from the mainstream one travels, the more pricing discrepancies are revealed.

Comparing Four E-Book Distributors

The four major e-book distributors are Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Google Books.  The first three offer titles for their proprietary e-reader devices as well as applications to read their books on PC’s, Mac’s, iPads and certain smart phones.  Google’s bookstore is not centered around a particular e-reader.

We decided to research pricing on some non-mainstream titles across the four e-book sites. The table below was constructed by starting at Barnes & Noble’s web listings for various general interest books in the computer, cooking, gardening, humor and politics/current events categories.  We picked randomly from the first five or so “NookBooks” listed and compared pricing on those titles across the four major e-book platforms.  All prices were as of 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 15, 2011.

“Customer Service”

Last spring one of our editors here at Cape Cod Today purchased a Nook Color device.  The device failed just as the Nook Tablet was about to be released.  Our intrepid reporter visited a Barnes & Noble store, explained the problem and was told that he could swap his dead, still-in-warranty Nook Color for a Nook Tablet for the difference in cost between the two devices.

TV spot for Nook featuring Jane Lynch.  After some of our own recent experiences with Barnes & Noble customer service, we find it sublimely ironic that the woman who portrays the “villain” on Glee is a spokesperson promoting the Nook customer experience.On the day the Nook Tablet was released, our reporter visited the store once again and approached the same person who had told him about the swap opportunity.

Unfortunately, the Barnes & Noble computer system disagreed with the store associate’s swap-out offer.  Our report spent over an hour at the store fighting tooth and nail until he got his Nook Tablet by paying an extra $50 plus the cost of a year's warranty. 

He said at the time that this appalling experience really soured him on the Barnes & Noble “experience”, and yet BN’s commercials tout how the Nook devices are the only ones that come with in-store support which, in this case, was virtually useless.

In contrast, our reporter purchased an Amazon Kindle Fire the day they were released.  He received his new device with a flawed screen, and Amazon “… fell all over themselves to make it right with me.  They sent a new device by next day UPS with no argument, attitude or corporate resistance.  With support like that, who needs a store?” 

The reporter told us he has “barely touched the Nook Tablet” since his Kindle Fire arrived.

Caveat Emptor on e-books

Our research showed that, where a discrepancy existed, the price advantage generally belonged to Amazon Kindle.  While we understand that Barnes & Noble might not have the best price on every title, we are very surprised that they will not price match when some of the discrepancies are so egregious.

Before you purchase an e-reader or “reader’s tablet” this Christmas, Cape Cod Today recommends that you visit the manufacturer’s e-book store and spend some time researching prices on the kinds of books that you enjoy. 

Especially in the case of Amazon and BN, their e-reader devices are quite comparable – so it’s all the more important to find out what it’s going to cost to fill your new device with books from the manufacturer to whom you’re about to consummate a “marriage”. 

Caveat emptor and a little research before the nuptials might make for fewer surprises on the “wedding night”.