Barnes & Noble says that its Nook e-reader will arrive in stores on Dec. 7, later than anticipated, due to high demand for the devices. The bookseller previously told customers that many of its pre-orders would not ship until after the holidays. Barnes & Noble and Sony are both claiming e-reader shortages, while Amazon.com announced best-ever November sales numbers for its Kindle devices, as the e-reader market continues to expand beyond a niche industry.Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader will make its debut in the
bookseller’s brick-and-mortar stores in Dec. 7, later than anticipated, and in
limited quantities. However, Barnes & Noble is promising that all stores
will have demonstration units, as the company seeks to wrest market share away
from Amazon.com and other e-reader manufacturers during the holiday
season.
On its Nook FAQ
page, Barnes & Noble announced that "starting on December 7th, you can
visit your local Barnes & Noble store and experience Nook. All stores will
have a demonstration unit for customers to try."
In addition, a Barnes
& Noble spokesperson told Reuters that only a very limited number of
Nooks will be sold at "high-volume" stores starting on Dec. 7. This follows the
bookseller’s Nov. 20 announcement that
people ordering the Nook after that date would have to wait until the first week
of January 2010 for their e-reader to ship.
Barnes & Noble insists that high demand is the cause
behind the delays.
"I called a few stores in the SF Bay area who all pointed me
to the San Jose store," one commenter posted on a
Barnes & Noble forum devoted to e-books. "So I called and they said they
would have demo units, but no units for sale in store as all the stock was
allocated to pre-orders."
Other commenters on the forum reported similar experiences. "Just
got off the phone with our local store," wrote another, "who confirmed
the
demo units are slated to arrive on Dec 7th but they won’t be selling
the
products physically in any stores—only online."
Yet another posting, supposedly by a Barnes & Noble
employee, stated that "our demo has been pushed by until week of 12-7 as of this
time. It has appeared [in] the near (large) stores, and we have been told that
it will continue the process next week. However, due to the demand they have
pushed the offering of additional product in stores back, so as to fulfill pre
orders."
Barnes & Noble is not alone in its delay issues. Sony has
also announced that delivery dates for its Reader Daily Edition, which includes
a 7-inch touchscreen display, "cannot be guaranteed," although devices are
expected to ship between Dec. 18 and Jan. 8.
The Nook, whose dual-screen format allows text to be read on
an e-ink display while navigation and book-downloading is conducted via a
separate iPhone-like touchscreen, is competing against Amazon.com’s Kindle line
of e-readers.
On Nov. 30, Amazon.com suggested that the Kindle had posted
its best-ever sales for November. However, the e-bookseller continued its
tradition of not breaking out any sales numbers. Amazon.com
CEO Jeff Bezos has previously indicated that Kindle sales account for roughly a
third of the company’s book-related revenue.
Although e-readers have long been considered something of a
niche industry, with Forrester Research predicting sales of around 3 million
units in 2009, their manufacturers’ claims of increased demand suggest that the
market may be expanding. Helping that growth, of course, is the rapidly falling
prices for many e-readers. Amazon.com
has repeatedly lowered its e-reader prices in the face of competition from
Barnes & Noble, with the original Kindle and the Nook now both selling
for $259.
Mobile & Wireless 
