Showing 109 posts tagged retail
“Apple now holds about 20 percent of the U.S. ebook market, director Keith Moerer said in court Tuesday… Most estimates had placed Apple’s U.S. ebook market share at around 10 percent, with Amazon’s Kindle at 50 to 60 percent and Barnes & Noble’s Nook at 25 percent. But Moerer said the iBookstore’s market share was 20 percent in the first few months after the iBookstore’s launch, Publishers Weekly reports, and is about 20 percent now. (If this is true, the other retailers’ market shares would need to be adjusted downward, since Google and Kobo likely hold 1 to 2 percent of the U.S. ebook market.) From PW:”
(via interestingsnippets)
“Finding a book used to mean scouring the shelves at a bookstore, asking a bookseller for guidance or relying on recommendations from friends. But bookstores are dwindling, leaving publishers with a deep worry about the future of the business: with fewer brick-and-mortar options, how will readers discover books? One-day discounts are part of the answer. Promotions like the Kindle Daily Deal from Amazon and the Nook Daily Find from Barnes & Noble have produced extraordinary sales bumps for e-books, the kind that usually happen as a result of glowing book reviews or an author’s prominent television appearances.”
Borders gift card holders deserve nothing, judge rules
Borders owes nothing to holders of roughly $210.5 million of gift cards that had not been used by the time the bookstore chain shut down, a Manhattan federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter said it would be unfair to other creditors of the former Borders Group Inc. to let gift card holders pursue recoveries from the bankruptcy estate.
To do so, Carter explained, could upset a liquidation by Borders’ bankruptcy trustee that is already “substantially” completed.
» via Yahoo! News
Penguin reaches pact with EU to end e-book price-fixing probe
Penguin has vowed to change its pricing strategy for digital books, including terminating an e-book pricing pact with Apple, to resolve an antitrust probe by the European Union.
As part of the deal, Penguin has agreed to terminate existing agency agreements — those pacts that allow a publisher, not a retailer, to set prices — and will refrain from adopting “most favored nation” pricing clauses for five years. Those had prevented retailers such as Amazon from undercutting Apple’s e-book prices.
» via CNET
Internet sales tax, here we come?
The days of shopping online and being able to duck sales taxes may soon come to an end. The U.S. Senate is slated to vote on the Internet sales tax sometime next week, according to Reuters.
Internet tax supporters, with backing from Walmart, Macy’s, and Best Buy, are hoping a Senate vote will give them enough political leverage to require Americans to pay sales tax whenever buying goods online. This could usher in the first national Internet sales tax ever.
» via CNET
Macmillan eBooks now Being Discounted
Macmillan was the last company to settle with the US Justice Department in February, when all of the other major publishes had settled months back. We are now seeing some online book sellers discounting book titles from Macmillan.
Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Apple iBooks are discounting eBooks and even matching each others promotional deals. Meanwhile, Kobo and Google books are starting to discount books, but the better deals are found with the big three. For example, the The Silver Linings Playbook has a list price of $9.99, and you can get it from Amazon, Apple and B&N for $7.99.
» via Good E-Reader
New York Court Upholds Sales Tax for Online Retailers
New York’s highest court rejected arguments Thursday by two Internet retailers that they should be exempt from collecting state sales tax.
Amazon.com, the biggest online store, and its much smaller competitor Overstock.com had separately sued to challenge a 2008 state law that required online retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases made by New York residents. That served effectively to raise prices on the sites by nearly 10 percent, reducing their competitive advantage against brick-and-mortar retailers.
In a statement, Amazon denounced the New York Court of Appeals ruling as conflicting with precedents by the United States Supreme Court and decisions by other state courts. Overstock said it was considering appealing to the federal Supreme Court.
» via The New York Times (Subscription may be required for some content)
Internet tax proposal up for a vote in Senate this week
Internet tax supporters are hoping that a vote in the U.S. Senate as early as today will finally give them enough political leverage to require Americans to pay sales taxes when shopping online.
Sens. Mike Enzi (R-Wy.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) are expected to offer an amendment to a Democratic budget resolution this week that, by allowing states to “collect taxes on remote sales,” is intended to usher in the first national Internet sales tax.
“We’re working overtime in pushing this, talking to our members, activating our grassroots,” says Stephen Schatz, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation. The group’s board members include OfficeMax, Macy’s, the Container Store, and Saks, which argue it’s only fair to force Americans to pay sales taxes when buying from online retailers.
» via CNET
“The technology to allow the resale of digital goods is now in place, and it will cause a dramatic upheaval,” said Bill Rosenblatt, president of GiantSteps, a technology consulting firm. “In the short term, it’s great for consumers. Over the long term, however, it could seriously reduce creators’ incentive to create.”
High-res
High-tech software for retailers discreetly tracks customers
Imagine that you’re the proud owner of a good old-fashioned brick-and-mortar shop. Now imagine a software service that gives you a snapshot of what’s hot and what’s not in your store. That’s what Prism Skylabs offers.
The San Francisco startup has developed technology that uses video captured by security cameras to track customers’ movements and create “heatmaps.” The images represent an aggregate of all the shoppers’ whereabouts in the store and which items they touched. For retailers, it’s a valuable tool for making decisions about product placement and floor layout.
» via CNET
