Amazon Offers Cut of Ebook Sales To Book Stores Selling Kindle

nk497 writes with this excerpt from PC Pro "Amazon plans to give independent booksellers 10% of the takings from ebooks bought on Kindles they sell, the online giant has revealed. The new Amazon Source program aims to encourage independent bookstores and small retailers to sell Kindle readers by offering commission for the first two years of the device's life. As an alternative to the 10% kickback from book sales, retailers opting into the Amazon Source program can choose instead to receive a larger discount up front when buying the devices for resale."

Comments

Seems right....

[wbr1]

Sell this device now and get a cut for immediate gain. Watch as devices sold slowly render your main business dead, and only have residual income after that.

Re:Seems right....

[ScentCone]

Watch as devices sold slowly render your main business dead

Which is going to happen to that retail store whether or not the devices are bought through them. Why not get a piece of the action while your business is failing anyway? Sell e-readers, and use the proceeds to tune up your coffee lounge area.

Re:Seems right....

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Which is going to happen to that retail store whether or not the devices are bought through them. Why not get a piece of the action while your business is failing anyway?

If your selling enough kindles to make that 10% actually mean something then you have enough walk in traffic to not need that 10% incentive. Not to mention, when you sell a kindle to your bookstore patron you are pushing your patrons to use Amazon instead. You just told your customers to go ahead and make your future purchases with Amazon because it's okay I get a cut.

I think this is really targeted towards book blog sites that provide links to Amazon and not to real brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Re:lifespan?

[jsrjsr]

First one -- two months. Second one -- eight months so far. Learn not to leave it laying on seating areas and it will last longer. ;^)

Re:So a commission to cut your own throat?

[ScentCone]

"We'll pay you to stop being a bookstore and start being a Licensed Kindle Kiosk".

As opposed to simply watching that business go away anyway, and closing up shop entirely? So, sell nothing and go out of business, or recognize that your customers' expectations and habits have changed, and be a part of it. The problem isn't the e-reader, the problem is printed books.

Re:Razor Blades

[0123456]

Exactly ... isn't this basically "we're going put you out of business anyway, but here's a little cash if you help us do it." ?

Book stores don't sell every book that's available on Kindle (you'd need a big store to sell >1,000,000 different books). People who buy books on Kindle may well prefer buying paper books at their local book store when they are available there, so they don't have to wait for Amazon to deliver.

So, while it's not an obvious win for the stores, there are potential benefits.

Re:lifespan?

[Salgak1]

Can't speak to LIFESPAN of Kindles, but recently bought a lot of 80 re-conditioned Kindle 3G's, and am finding about a 5% failure rate out of the box.

And, while not a Kindle,I have a first-flight Nook Color reader (~ 2 1/2 years old), and the battery performance is off significantly, to the point where it requires daily charging. Of course, it's backlit, color, and is a walled-garden Android minitablet, so the charge cycle is going to be a lot higher than an e-Ink Kindle. . .

Not a dead model at all

[SuperKendall]

I don't understand why the new model for local book stores is not clear to everyone. It is this; local bookstores are essentially places to browse books to see what you want, then thy can earn money either of direct sales from the location (which is very much going to happen in the cases of gifts) or from affiliate revenue.

Gifts alone are not enough revenue to cut it; buying a Kindle from your local affiliate is a whole new stream of revenue that is likely enough to keep a store afloat. All the store has to do is figure out a way to entice people to buy Kindle's from the store and they get two-three years of recurring revenue as the owner buys books even if they never return to the store!

Book stores would also be smart to place QR stickers on each book that provided an affiliate link to purchase the book on Amazon.

10% is greater than Zero

[SuperKendall]

Yes put a QR sticker on the book so you can get 10% of the profit rather than 100%

Your math is wrong; 10% is greater than 0%. People are ALREADY looking at a book in a bookstore, scanning the barcode on Amazons shopping app, and ordering it online.

10% A MONTH for three years is also better than 0% over three years, which is what you may get if a bookstore sells a kindle reader and the purchasers keeps buying books. Wh wouldn't they? I know I buy a book or two every month. That's all money that an affiliate could have a percentage of and I'd be happy to help make that happen.

Your math is even "wronger", in that a book store selling only physical books must purchase a huge stock of books, many of which will not sell. A book store oriented to making money from affiliate revenue need stock only a copy or two of each book, possibly keeping more of some really popular books for those that actually want to purchase. But in any case it mens much less money tied up in inventory and books that don't sell no longer hurt you.