Nov 4, 2011

Amazon free Kindle books. Is it dumping?

A tweet claims:
 Andrés Hoyos  
Amazon está ofreciendo libros gratis a sus usuarios premium de Kindle. ¿Cómo compite una librería con eso? Dumping.
"Amazon is offering free books to premium Kindle users. How does a library compete against that? Dumping. "
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For Amazon the marginal cost of giving e-books for free is almost zero. And this might well be a marketing strategy. Nevertheless, nowadays libraries are buying Kindles and are lending them to their members. Amazon might as well be helping libraries. 

2 comments:

  1. No dejás muy claro contra quién está haciendo el dumping. Libraries or Bookstores? If you refer to Libraries I would say that "au contraire" Amazon is doing a great thing! If you mean that it is doing "dumping" with Bookstores I would say that Disruptive innovations tend to destroy some businesses (even those we love so much) and that it is better for bookstores to catch up with their business strategies unless they want to end up as Blockbuster failed with NetFlix. That Case should be a warning to them.

    Now, I don't agree with the principle behind "For Amazon the marginal cost of giving e-books for free is almost zero." Yes, it is surely almost zero to distribute them but it is necesary to take in consideration all the $ and time invested for the company to negotiate this deal with the Publishers of books. Amazon is just an intermediary in the book business; the publishers are a Very important actor here that is usually not taken in consideration when speaking of Amazon.

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  2. Gracias!!! Actually I am not the one making the claim, and he (Andrés Hoyos) refers to libraries, not bookstores. There might be a fixed cost like you say, but the marginal costs in a certain range might be close to zero. Saludos!

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