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Amazon to set its own prices for forthcoming UK Kindle e-book store
July 30, 2010 | 5:47 pm
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By Chris Meadows
Something we apparently missed mentioning in the rush of the other Kindle 3 news is that Amazon has also announced a Kindle e-book store specific to the UK will be launching at the same time as the two new Kindles launch over there, making the UK the only country apart from the US to have a native Kindle e-book store of its very own.
The wi-fi and 3G Kindles, $139 and $189 in the USA, will be £109 ($171 at current exchange rates) and £149 ($234) respectively. A bit more expensive than the US, but not the “equal numeric values, just change the currency signs” prices a commenter to another TeleRead story put forward as a rule of thumb either.
More interestingly, The Bookseller reports that Amazon, not the publishers, is going to be setting the prices for that e-book store. (It’s kind of sad when a retailer actually getting to set its own prices is considered “interesting”, but that’s Agency Pricing for you.)
It is not clear whether UK publishers will pressure Amazon to adopt the agency model there as well. (Though given that they’re mostly owned by the same megaconglomerates, you would think it would be a foregone conclusion.)
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Comments:
Chris,
The WiFi only is $139 in the U.S.
Re the UK, it seems that in Europe there is stronger feeling against what is deemed, over there, a form of price-fixing. There were news stories about that for awhile.
Who knows?
Maybe the Price-Fix Five are reconsidering.
In the US they are now bound by contract to the boat- anchor pricing scheme but not in the UK.
In fact, Penguin is now proclaiming to be a champion of ebooks over there!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/29/penguin-john-makinson-ebooks
(It might have something to do with their ebooks making up 1% of ther sales instead of 6% like the entire market. But maybe that’s just me…)
BTW, does Apple have a UK iBook operation?
Oops, fixed the price error. Thanks for pointing that out.
(Hope that doesn’t count as “price-fixing”, I’d have to have Europeans mad at me!
)
Chris,
That’s the best kind of price-fixing — lower, lower, lower
Felix,
http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad/
“iPad
A magical and revolutionary product
[ What was that again? ]
at an unbelievable price
429 British Pounds”
“iPad will be available in the UK (and Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland) on Friday 28 May.”
http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2010/05/21/ipad-uk-first-ibooks-appear-on-uk-store/
‘With iPad UK launch day now less than a week away, Apple is still beavering away at the iPad UK app store with the first iBooks hitting the virtual shelves. We’ve been wandering through the virtual stacks to take a peak at the first UK iBooks…
Rather starting than [sic] new books, Apple is beginning to fill the iBooks store with the free Project Gutenberg titles. We’re promised 30,000 classic texts to choose from when its finished. We’ve already spotted virtual tomes by Dickens and Sir Walter Scott.”
Just like in the iPhone apps and iPad apps sections of the store, the iBook store will offer up some featured titles. Currently it’s showing Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War (which Steve Jobs should read in the wake of Google TV) and recommending Jules Verne. ‘
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“Taking a peak” too, because they were obviously high on the progress in the filling of the store.
I did think, at first, they were being ironic.
Why does everyone always do this? You’re comparing a price exclusive of sales tax ($139) with one that includes VAT (£109), which is obviously stupid. You should be comparing the prices before sales tax, in which case $139 compares with £92.77, and the price difference is actually negligible.
Perhaps the reason for the publishers not setting prices in the UK is that the law does not allow the manufacturer to set the price – it is solely up to the vendor. See ending of Net Book Agreement (Wikipedia suggests this is true in the EU as well)
For the ebooks themselves they’ve already had separate prices for different regions based on your location settings. All that’s new is that those Kindle ebooks now show up in the UK store as well. Instead of examining the price of the Kindle, I think you should take a closer look at the price difference for ebooks – there’s a much bigger percentage difference there.
“in the UK is that the law does not allow the manufacturer to set the price – it is solely up to the vendor.”
I’m so jealous. My ebook buying has decreased dramatically since agency pricing went into effect here in the States. Shopping for reasonably priced ebooks has led me to lesser known authors that I enjoy, but unfortunately that also takes a lot of time(reading excerpts, reviews, recs, etc.) which is often in limited supply. I’ve gone back to the library for the popular, pricey titles.