Tuesday 8 April 2014

Nook, Nook! Who's there? - Barnes and Noble!

Adapting to the new age

Barnes & Noble Bookshop originated in 1886 in New York. Throughout the history, this company struggled many times to remain on the market, but nowadays it is considered to be very sucessful and one of a few bookstore chains in the States. 
One of the most significant steps in their history has been the introduction of their e-reader Nook. This happened just on time, barely a year after Amazon introduced their Kindle. The sales started slowly rise and after a few years the price was reduced and the popularity hugely increased. This company has sucessfully found a way to survive in this strange age of digital media.

Paying for simplicity?

What does their webpage look like? The first thought that comes to your mind is certainly - simple. In contrast to for example Amazon Kindle Store, BN.com is not completelly filled by charts, ratings, recommendations and small thumbnails. A simple menu helps you browse the genres of books you are really interested in. While for someone this is easier and less complicated, some readers can consider the page as dull and uninteresting, lacking some bonus information. 







What is probably more important then the design of the online bookstore are actually the prices of ebooks. In general, these are more expensive then the same ones Kindle users buy. 
The average ebook prices are relatively higher on Barnes and Noble page, than on Kindle Store

It is important to note, that the price of the paperbacks and real books is higher in Barnes and Noble bookstore than on Amazon, so this can have an influence on ebook prices as well.

How to compete?

It is important to bring special features, that other companies did not come up with yet. This can serve as an advantage of the product, which can influence the customer's choice of the bookstore. Barnes and Noble chose different ways to differentiate itself and here are a few of them:
When Barnes & Noble launched the Nook e-book reader late last year, the company said it would offer unique features such as e-book lending, free in-store streaming of many titles, and Android apps that would run on the color touch screen at the bottom of the device.
Read more: http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/b-n-delivers-meaty-nook-update-teases-ipad-app/

Apart from this, Barnes and Noble incorporated some games into their e-reader, such as Chess or Sudoku.

The position of BN with its Nook e-reader is currently a 3rd place. Even though they adapted quite sucessfully, they still find it hard to win over their competitors.
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