Shelf Awareness
U.K. bookstore chain Waterstones is removing Amazon's Kindle devices from many of its stores, the Bookseller reported. Managing director James Daunt said Kindle sales "continue to be pitiful so we are taking the display space back in more and more shops. It feels very much like the life of one of those inexplicable bestsellers; one day piles and piles, selling like fury; the next you count your blessings with every sale because it brings you closer to getting it off your shelves forever to make way for something new. Sometimes, of course, they 'bounce' but no sign yet of this being the case with Kindles."An Amazon spokesperson said the company was "pleased with the positive momentum and growing distribution of Kindle and Fire tablet sales," adding that Kindle book sales in the U.K. were also growing, the Bookseller wrote.
Blackwell's CEO David Prescott countered that fewer e-reading devices were being sold at his chain, which stocks Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader: "We're not seeing a great deal of people who are buying an e-reader for the first time now. People are buying e-reader replacements, but that's it."
Calling the Waterstones move "no surprise," Enders analyst Douglas McCabe said, "The e-reader may turn out to be one of the shortest-lived consumer technology categories."
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