Online Sales

In the mushrooming controversy over e-books, it’s easy to understand the publishers’ motives. But what about Apple? ( NSDQ: AAPL ) Did the company want to raise book prices in order to protect its iPad and blunt the rise of Amazon? These questions will...

For many booksellers, tomorrow’s discounts of up to $15 for using Amazon’s price check app is the last straw. Although the app does not apply to books, it does affect bookstore sidelines like toys, music, and DVDs, and it adds to a perception that bricks-and-mortar bookstores grossly overcharge. The app also comes on top of data that customers regularly scan books with their smart phones and then order discounted copies directly from Amazon, or even use the bookstore’s free Wi-Fi to download Kindle e-books to their devices. The latter caused Diesel Bookstore, which has stores in Oakland, Malibu, and

It’s been a week to forget for publishers after both the Justice Department and the European Commission announced investigations into e-book pricing tactics. Meanwhile, dozens of law firms are steaming ahead with a class action to [...]

When an analyst uses the word "vaporise'' to describe what a tablet is going to do, it gets our attention. Evercore Partners' Robert Cihra believes the Kindle Fire "may just vaporise other 'for profit' Android tablet(s),'' to say nothing of the non-Android tablets. Those looking for a more affordable tablet will be drawn to the sleek seven-inch device, as Cihra thinks it…

From the press release: Overstock.com Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK), today announced that it has partnered with Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, to sell eBooks through Barnes & Noble.  Visitors to Overstock.com will now have access to the digital edition of hardcover and paperback books available [...]

The Swiss government commissioned a study on the impact of copyright-infringing downloading. The independent study concluded that downloaders use the money they spend to buy more legitimate entertainment products. So they've concluded to maintain Switzerland's extant copyright law, which makes downloading for personal use legal. It's a rare victory for evidence-based policy…

(h/t TeleRead)

All happy Kindle Fire customers, to paraphrase Tolstoy, are the same. Unhappy customers, however, are unhappy in their own way. To get a feel for what makes them unhappy—and how unhappy they are—we spent some time Saturday morning reading the Kindle Fire feedback on Amazon.com. There were 3,678 write-ups in all, nearly half of them (47%) glowing five-star reviews that basically said the same thing (Typical headline: "Outstanding value at $199"). What interested us, however, were the 491 (13.3%) one-star reviews.

Valve is one of the major players in the gaming arena.

Piracy is a ‘non-issue’: “Managing director says piracy is a 'service problem.'"

Gabe Newell, Valve managing director, has claimed that software piracy is a “non issue” for the company’s Steam gaming service. Instead, he said that the fundamental misconception about piracy is that is that it is motivated by price.

Just in time for Cyber Monday, Open Road Integrated Media has launched Gift of E (giftofe.com), a site aimed at educating consumers on how to gift e-books this holiday season.

Empirical evidence clearly suggests that Amazon tends to sell high-demand products and leave long-tail products for independent sellers to offer. The platform owner's “cherry-picking” of the successful products, however, gives an independent seller the incentive to mask any high demand by lowering his sales with a reduced service level (unobserved by the platform owner).