The e-book/e-reader wars are really heating up. Amazon has plenty of good news to share around its Kindle device. Now Barnes & Noble is talking about a major push to increase Nook sales.
Julie Bosman with the New York Times reports that in September, the company will start putting a great deal of emphasis on Nook in its brick and mortar stores, and that could go a long way in helping it compete with Amazon’s increasingly successful Kindle.
According to Bosman, the Nook’s physical in-store presence will include 1,000-square-foot boutiques in all B&N stores with sample Nook devices, demo tables, video screens, and employees giving Nook-related advice and instructions to customers.
"By devoting more floor space to promoting the Nook, Barnes & Noble is playing up what it calls a crucial advantage over Amazon in the e-reader war: its 720 bricks-and-mortar stores, where customers can test out the device before they commit to buying it," she writes.
Nook made a big impact in June when it dropped the price of its 3G version to $199 (along with the release of a new Wi-Fi version of the device). Not to be outdone, Amazon quickly dropped the price of its Kindle from $259 to $189.
This week, Amazon introduced a new generation of Kindles, including a cheaper Wi-Fi version. The price of the new smaller 3G + Wi-Fi Kindle is $189, while the Wi-Fi only version costs $139.
Amazon recently announced that it had sold more Kindle e-books than hardback books. Now the company is claiming that they’ll outsell paperbacks as soon as next year.
I would not be surprising to see Amazon make a quick push to sell more Kindles before B&N can get its physical boutiques ready. After all, customers who already own a Kindle are less likely to be in the market for a Nook. We’ll see what Amazon’s next move is.
