Money Making Business

Third Party Suppliers Benefit Thanks To Amazon Kindle

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Despite the fact that Amazon are being unashamedly coy with regard to sales figures, there can be no doubt that they are happy with the performance of their Kindle ebook reader series to date. The mark one Kindle went on sale in November 2007 and demand was so high that it sold out in under 6 hours. It was out of stock right up to April 2008.

The Kindle 2, widely considered to be an improvement to an already excellent product, was released in February 2009 and was another big hit with the Amazon customer base. In May of 2009 Amazon announced that its new, larger Kindle DX would be released and commenced taking pre-orders for shipping on June 10 2009.

All things considered, by June of 2009 the Kindle was the must have gadget and was frequently referred to as the “iPod of reading”. Meanwhile, in parallel with the development and marketing of the device itself, Amazon continued to add to its library of Kindle titles. By early June of 2009 there were in excess of 300,000 Kindle titles on offer and the collection was increasing at the rate of, on average, 500 books daily.

Fantastic business for Amazon and a huge driver for repeat business. Sure, you can get books for your kindle elsewhere – but these might need translation, and why bother when the Kindle store has so many volumes that you can download using 3G wireless connectivity in less than a minute?

It’s also good news for all those third party suppliers of kindle accessories – a rapidly expanding market. Amazon originally shipped a cover with the first Kindle, but stopped this practice when the Kindle 2 was launched (no great loss maybe as many users didn’t like the cover and bought alternatives anyway). Customers who have just forked out out $359 for their Kindle 2 or $489 for their DX probably don’t think twice about spending another $20 – $40 on a protective sleeve for their expensive new toy. Like any portable device, it’s sure to come in for a few bumps and scrapes in use – it makes sense to protect it doesn’t it?

Aside from the practical considerations, it seems that some Kindle owners are quite willing to pay more than $100 for a designer leather cover – which will not only afford some level of protection but will also make their high tech Kindle look more like a “proper” book. Since the Kindle is a fairly high ticket item most owners, will have some disposable income so it probably isn’t a huge surprise that they’re ready to pay for a few extras to customise it.

Kindle owners can also select from a wide variety of other items – clip on lights, metal reading stands and extra chargers are currently popular. As the popularity of the Kindle continues to grow, and as further new models are brought to market, it seems likely that more and more independent manufacturers will benefit from Amazon’s innovation.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 1:08 am and is filed under Online Business, Promotion and Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.