Honestly, I can't help but think of this as a good thing. Choice is good and all, but we need more competition in the eReader marketspace. Somewhat paradoxically, not offering the Kindle could improve sales of competing brands (in this case Barnes & Noble--and the Nook is, in many ways, the superior eReader, and I say this as a Kindle owner).
Regardless, I doubt that Target really made much money off of the Kindle line. It's probably there more as a way to get people in the store and buy something else while they're there.
Maybe they weren't selling enough product to make it worthwhile carrying the product line. Retail stores have to do this from time to time to maximize profits per sq. ft.
That's option 1.
Option 2. There were too many returns of the Fire and it wasn't worth the hassle.
Option 3. The margins on the Fire were too low to make it worthwhile and it wasn't bringing new customers into the store.
Option 4. Target got tired of supporting Amazon (see below).
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbyrn
Amazon promotes using competitor's brick and mortar stores as nothing more than showrooms for people to buy direct from Amazon. For Target and the others to promote Amazon products is like cutting your own throat.
Exactly. I'm really amazed that there hasn't been more lobbying for sales tax to be collected on ALL products shipped into a state whether the seller has a presence or not. All it would take is a simple law passed by Congress - and there would certainly be plenty of supporters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahmlco
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
Those numbers are almost certainly wrong. Every other report that puts Kindle at half of Android's sales is quoting figures for ALL Kindle products, not just the Fire. I could believe that there were 29 M Kindle products of all type sold, but I'd be shocked if there were that many Fires sold.
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
That # seems awfully fishy, 1st I've heard of it since Amazon has never released any sales figure for the kindle. Also, even if true the comparison is irrelevant because Amazon is either breaking even or making a loss on each tablet sold. Just like home consoles, it's simply a device to get into people's hands so they can buy stuff from Amazon. And I change my description from 'fishy' to bullshit. After further consideration no way in hell they've sold 30 million kindle fires.
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
The article is wrong. I don't know where they get their numbers but it's not from Amazon. Besides, not all Kindles are Android tabs. Secondly, "Apple reportedly has 55 percent of the tablet market" is probably just for a quarter and not a combined tablet "market share". I can see 12 MM ipads, 12 MM other (highly unlikely) with Fire being 3-6 MM (at best).
That # seems awfully fishy, 1st I've heard of it since Amazon has never released any sales figure for the kindle. Also, even if true the comparison is irrelevant because Amazon is either breaking even or making a loss on each tablet sold. Just like home consoles, it's simply a device to get into people's hands so they can buy stuff from Amazon. And I change my description from 'fishy' to bullshit. After further consideration no way in hell they've sold 30 million kindle fires.
Whenever you see asinine numbers like this you are presented with these scenarios:
1) The blogger/analyst had such an insight epiphany that all the other analysts watching Amazon, Apple, tablets, ereaders completely missed. This person should go on your must read list.
2) The blogger/analyst had an epic failure of math, logic or both.
1) You cannot combine numbers from different sources like Comscore and IDC and come up with anything BUT bogus numbers. To some degree you can use them to confirm one another or use the numbers from one of these sources to do some analysis but the methods these guys use to come up with their estimates are so divergent that using them in combination results in laughable errors.
So multiplying Amazon's 55% of Android share with 45% of Android's share of the tablet market is wrong. As for why you can see later.
Analysis 101 FAIL.
2) ComScore, is reporting 54.5 percent share of installed base in Feburary. Awesome number...right up until you read that they considered the Nook Tablet as an ebook reader and not a tablet. What? Why would you do that? They're both in the same freaking category...B&N had 3.6% sales share in Feb according to IDC and given the head start for the Nook Color the Nook family of tablet's installed base wasn't negligible.
Another Analysis 101 FAIL for not actually looking at the methodology.
3) From that same article you can see a like to the IDC report on another CNet article. Which if you go read indicates a 45% share of 2012 Q4 SALES. You shouldn't multiply SALE share with INSTALLED BASE share and not expect really stupid numbers as result. Like 30M Kindle Fires sold.
What's even more amusing is that IDC report clearly provided the IDC estimates of Amazon Kindle shipments and share in Q4: 4.7M Kindles and 16.8% share.
I prefer to make up my own numbers as opposed to reading FAIL.
Taken together you seriously start wondering about his critical thinking abilities and how bogus his eInk numbers are.
But the real kicker is in a discussion about the relative merits of eInk vs LCD and how eInk is Teh Doomed he completely ignored the biggest recent development for eInk eBooks: The B&N Nook with GlowLight. The equalizer for reading in the dark for eInk.
Just like how Amazon sells Apple Products even though they are competitors?
That's a poor example to use. Most manufacturers sell products directly as well as through third party retailers. It's true that Apple has stores as well, but so did (do) a number of these other companies. Many weren't successful, and so they were closed.
But look at Dell, HP, Sony, Nintendo, etc. they all have brick and mortar stores. So does Microsoft these days. Many others sell through websites. You could say that almost all of Target's (and Amazon's, and WalMart's, etc.) manufacturers and suppliers are competitors to some extent. But it isn't actually true. Not in the way you think.
But Amazon is primarily a retailer in competition with all other retailers. They sell the same products Target does. They even have small independent stores selli g through them, which is even more competition to Target. Why should Target help them? It's curious as to why they even thought it was a good idea in the beginning. The idea of the Fire is to try to get more people to buy from Amazon's site through it. That directly impacts Targets business.
While iPads and other tablets can be used for that, and undoubtedly are, it's not their primary purpose. The Nook is mostly for books, which isn't a big part of Target's business, so it means less.
But I'll let it slide. There are many possibilities here.
Some folks take Target at its word - that it is paring its lineup in favor of what sells. That makes little sense to me because the Kindle line sells much more volume than the Nook.
However, we need to keep in mind that M$ just made a huge investment in the Nook - so maybe Target is looking forward to expected future volume. If so, then they have a lot of confidence in the future growth rate of the Nook.
It may be that the Kindle is selling TOO well, and that due to its volume, too much other stuff is being sold to Target customers via the Kindle. It is reasonable to think that Amazon is selling lots of stuff via the Kindle, as was rumored to be its intent when it launched at a very low price. Amazon has a huge overlap with Target in many categories - homewares, staples, etc. Could be that Target didn't want to sell a "Portal to Amazon" device in their stores. While there is some overlap with Target's wares from the iPad and the Nook. For the most part, those devices are used to buy digital goods, most in the form of data, rather than tangible goods like sheets and plastic stuff.
Or it could be that Apple is strongarming Target to get rid of the Kindle. I doubt that.
You seldom fail to crack me up.
It probably comes down to two basic basic principles. One is that you shouldn't be aiding your main competitors. That's what Target was doing by selling these. I don't know why they did so in the beginning. There was never a way that they would be making a good profit on the sales unless Amazon was taking an even bigger loss on each sale.
The second is that you try to figure how many units you will move within time periods. If you don't meet what you figure is going to add to your sales for the space you are allocating, as well as warehouse space, training, sales costs, etc. then you get rid of it.
Floor and shelf space is at a premium in a B&M store. There is a fixed amount. Often, manufacturers pay retailers for floor and shelf space. It's that limited. That's why new products have problems getting shown, and older ones that still sell, but not so well, are often withdrawn.
So Target has to look at the square footage, and decide whether the sales from the product there is making more or less than the average product that could be displayed in that space. When you take the possibility that every one of those products you might sell could be taking sales away from you in other areas, then you might decide that the risk is too great.
I understand this from both sides from first being a manufacturer, then having a company that had services and retail goods.
Just like how Amazon sells Apple Products even though they are competitors?
HUGE difference my friend. Amazon is a direct threat to Target's business, they both are general merchandise retailers, one digital, the other brick and mortar. Target probably decided it wouldn't be a good idea to sell a competitors products in their stores, just as you would never see Target's Archer Farms brand products in a Wal-Mart.
Amazon sells a few Apple products because this is what people want to buy, they would be dumb to exclude Apple's products, which could potentially lead to other purchases. Apple and Amazon are not direct competitors as many seem to think. The Fire is a food cart, meant to sell warez, the iPad is a car designed to be driven.
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
The estimates for Fire sales during the holiday quarter ranged from 3 million to 6 million. Most estimates for that period now have converged to between 3 and 4 million. Sales have considerably tapered off since then.
The estimates for Fire sales during the holiday quarter ranged from 3 million to 6 million. Most estimates for that period now have converged to between 3 and 4 million. Sales have considerably tapered off since then.
Anecdotally with the refurbs selling for $139 there's been a lot of sales around my office. Folks that were on the fence simply pulled the trigger. Unlike the RIM and HP fire sales it's a product that is doing very well.
Samsung must be really annoyed that the 7" tablet price cratered since Amazon came on the scene.
Amazon promotes using competitor's brick and mortar stores as nothing more than showrooms for people to buy direct from Amazon. For Target and the others to promote Amazon products is like cutting your own throat.
Originally Posted by thataveragejoe
^This exactly. Amazon also promotes scanning barcodes from stores to comparison shop. This is all about Target v Amazon, nothing more. Nothing to do with Apple, Kindle sales, tablets or any other conspiracy theory.
thataveragejoe Johnson is right about markbyrn Johnson being right.
I didn't even know that Target was selling Amazon stuff. I guess they will probably drop Amazon gift cards, too (I'm only guessing that such a thing exists).
We discussed this a couple of weeks ago when Best Buy announced their down-sizing. Difficult for the brick-and-mortars to compete with the online stores when they are carrying the showroom overhead for everybody, and depending on your location, the online stores don't charge sales tax. I'm a little surprised about Target, though. I would have guessed that Target has enough other stuff (things that don't really benefit you to buy online, i.e. laundry detergent, etc.) that it wouldn't really matter.
But I'll let it slide. There are many possibilities here.
Some folks take Target at its word - that it is paring its lineup in favor of what sells. That makes little sense to me because the Kindle line sells much more volume than the Nook.
However, we need to keep in mind that M$ just made a huge investment in the Nook - so maybe Target is looking forward to expected future volume. If so, then they have a lot of confidence in the future growth rate of the Nook.
It may be that the Kindle is selling TOO well, and that due to its volume, too much other stuff is being sold to Target customers via the Kindle. It is reasonable to think that Amazon is selling lots of stuff via the Kindle, as was rumored to be its intent when it launched at a very low price. Amazon has a huge overlap with Target in many categories - homewares, staples, etc. Could be that Target didn't want to sell a "Portal to Amazon" device in their stores. While there is some overlap with Target's wares from the iPad and the Nook. For the most part, those devices are used to buy digital goods, most in the form of data, rather than tangible goods like sheets and plastic stuff.
Or it could be that Apple is strongarming Target to get rid of the Kindle. I doubt that.
You seldom fail to crack me up.
It probably comes down to two basic basic principles. One is that you shouldn't be aiding your main competitors. That's what Target was doing by selling these. I don't know why they did so in the beginning. There was never a way that they would be making a good profit on the sales unless Amazon was taking an even bigger loss on each sale.
The second is that you try to figure how many units you will move within time periods. If you don't meet what you figure is going to add to your sales for the space you are allocating, as well as warehouse space, training, sales costs, etc. then you get rid of it.
Floor and shelf space is at a premium in a B&M store. There is a fixed amount. Often, manufacturers pay retailers for floor and shelf space. It's that limited. That's why new products have problems getting shown, and older ones that still sell, but not so well, are often withdrawn.
So Target has to look at the square footage, and decide whether the sales from the product there is making more or less than the average product that could be displayed in that space. When you take the possibility that every one of those products you might sell could be taking sales away from you in other areas, then you might decide that the risk is too great.
I understand this from both sides from first being a manufacturer, then having a company that had services and retail goods.
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
Seeing as how Amazon has not, and will not announce how many Fires it has sold. A telling comment from BGR: "...OEMs using the Android platform aren’t really revealing the their true sales number, what most of them reveal are the numbers of units shipped, and this doesn’t mean they were sold. Second, if the tablets are not sold, retail stores ship the unsold devices back to where they came from and no one really looks at the return number or the number of devices returned to the manufacturers. And third, if there really are more Android tablets than iPads, then why is it that 88% of web traffic generated by tablets are from iPads? Are Android tablet users not using their devices to browse the web? Think about it."
So your source is pulling numbers out of a region of netherness that does not reflect, in any way that could be considered factual, the actual sales of the Fire. Given that Andy Rubin (head honcho for Android at Google for the less well informed) stated recently for AllThingsD that there are 12 million Android tablets in operation today (Feb, 2012). He didn't elaborate on how he determined that number, but taken at face value for the moment, that compares to 67 million iPads. Assuming generously that the Fire represents 50% or so of all Androids in operation today (for the sake of the argument only) that represents only ~6 million Fires. For the math challenged, 6 million does not equal 30 million.
But hey, let's give this source the benefit of the doubt for a moment, and dive into how comScore came up with the reported numbers.. According to the article they determined the numbers using what ComScore calls the Device Essentials measure:
"Device Essentials is based on comScore’s Unified Digital Measurement (UDM) data, which uses census-level information from tagged web page content. Device Essentials includes reporting of brand and operating system for digital devices and Internet page views from computers, smartphones, and tablets. Using this new method of analysis, comScore has reported that the Amazon Kindle Fire has doubled its share of the Android tablet market in two months, giving them the lead in the Android tablet market. Check out the graph below to see a breakdown of the Android tablet numbers." [chart removed] the footnote to the chart states this:"comScore Device Essentials measures unique devices accessing the web during the time period noted, including home, enterprise and secondary devices across all groups."
So this is not a measure of sales, this is a measure of web hits from "tagged web page content". There is no validation of this measure against absolute sales into or out of channel of this measure, so a check of the amount of moss growing on th enorth side of trees in the Amazon compound would be as valid a measure.
Anecdotally with the refurbs selling for $139 there's been a lot of sales around my office. Folks that were on the fence simply pulled the trigger. Unlike the RIM and HP fire sales it's a product that is doing very well.
Samsung must be really annoyed that the 7" tablet price cratered since Amazon came on the scene.
Referbs can't be quoted as an additional sale though. So they're coming from those sent back for whatever reason, which if what we read is correct, is mostly returns from unhappy customers, plus those that were returned under warranty for repair, which usually themselves were originally broken units.
Point in fact for my posting aboce comes from comScore's SEC filing:
"Our digital marketing intelligence platform is comprised of proprietary databases and a computational infrastructure that measures, analyzes and reports on digital activity. The foundation of our platform is data collected from our comScore panel of more than two million Internet users worldwide who have granted us explicit permission to confidentially measure their Internet usage patterns, online and certain offline buying behavior and other activities. By applying advanced statistical methodologies to our panel data, we project consumers’ online behavior for the total online population and a wide variety of user categories."
Their methodology has been generally criticized for no accuracy validation.
The Kindle Fire is probably not giving retailers huge margins, and sales through the Kindle store are going straight to Amazon. It's not like the Xbox, where they make a small margin on the consoles, but also get to sell the games. They sell the hardware Kindle hardware only and get no business afterward. The same could be said about the iOS devices, but there are tonnes of peripherals for the iPod through iPad (even high-margin Bose stereos that use iPhones/iPods). Plus there are iTunes gift cards and the sheer volume of the Apple sales.
So it's probably a mix of these factors and some Apple favouritism/conspiracy.
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
Those numbers don't make sense, a quarterly figure for Amazon Fire sales has been derived based on a percentage of total sales of iPads since 2010 (67 million), when the figure should have been based on last quarters sales of iPads (12 million).
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Yes.
Hey, all right. Seems they work, at least partially.
Quote:
Originally Posted by I am a Zither Zather Zuzz
But I'll let it slide.
I'm sure you will.
Quote:
Could be that Target didn''t want tl sell a P"portal to Amazon" device in their stores
Then they oughtn't sell iPads, either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahmlco
Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
Could have sworn Amazon didn't release numbers.
Honestly, I can't help but think of this as a good thing. Choice is good and all, but we need more competition in the eReader marketspace. Somewhat paradoxically, not offering the Kindle could improve sales of competing brands (in this case Barnes & Noble--and the Nook is, in many ways, the superior eReader, and I say this as a Kindle owner).
Regardless, I doubt that Target really made much money off of the Kindle line. It's probably there more as a way to get people in the store and buy something else while they're there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
Maybe they weren't selling enough product to make it worthwhile carrying the product line. Retail stores have to do this from time to time to maximize profits per sq. ft.
That's option 1.
Option 2. There were too many returns of the Fire and it wasn't worth the hassle.
Option 3. The margins on the Fire were too low to make it worthwhile and it wasn't bringing new customers into the store.
Option 4. Target got tired of supporting Amazon (see below).
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbyrn
Amazon promotes using competitor's brick and mortar stores as nothing more than showrooms for people to buy direct from Amazon. For Target and the others to promote Amazon products is like cutting your own throat.
Exactly. I'm really amazed that there hasn't been more lobbying for sales tax to be collected on ALL products shipped into a state whether the seller has a presence or not. All it would take is a simple law passed by Congress - and there would certainly be plenty of supporters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahmlco
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
See http://www.iSights.org/2012/04/the-death-of-e-ink-and-the-dedicated-e-book-reader-1.html
Those numbers are almost certainly wrong. Every other report that puts Kindle at half of Android's sales is quoting figures for ALL Kindle products, not just the Fire. I could believe that there were 29 M Kindle products of all type sold, but I'd be shocked if there were that many Fires sold.
are you getting others or just these three? I am on safari, 10.7.3.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahmlco
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
See http://www.iSights.org/2012/04/the-death-of-e-ink-and-the-dedicated-e-book-reader-1.html
That # seems awfully fishy, 1st I've heard of it since Amazon has never released any sales figure for the kindle. Also, even if true the comparison is irrelevant because Amazon is either breaking even or making a loss on each tablet sold. Just like home consoles, it's simply a device to get into people's hands so they can buy stuff from Amazon. And I change my description from 'fishy' to bullshit. After further consideration no way in hell they've sold 30 million kindle fires.
Quote:
Originally Posted by myapplelove
are you getting others or just these three? I am on safari, 10.7.3.
You have to edit the code by hand. These I have found to work.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ahmlco
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
See http://www.iSights.org/2012/04/the-death-of-e-ink-and-the-dedicated-e-book-reader-1.html
The article is wrong. I don't know where they get their numbers but it's not from Amazon. Besides, not all Kindles are Android tabs. Secondly, "Apple reportedly has 55 percent of the tablet market" is probably just for a quarter and not a combined tablet "market share". I can see 12 MM ipads, 12 MM other (highly unlikely) with Fire being 3-6 MM (at best).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slurpy
That # seems awfully fishy, 1st I've heard of it since Amazon has never released any sales figure for the kindle. Also, even if true the comparison is irrelevant because Amazon is either breaking even or making a loss on each tablet sold. Just like home consoles, it's simply a device to get into people's hands so they can buy stuff from Amazon. And I change my description from 'fishy' to bullshit. After further consideration no way in hell they've sold 30 million kindle fires.
Whenever you see asinine numbers like this you are presented with these scenarios:
1) The blogger/analyst had such an insight epiphany that all the other analysts watching Amazon, Apple, tablets, ereaders completely missed. This person should go on your must read list.
2) The blogger/analyst had an epic failure of math, logic or both.
3) The analyst is out an out lying.
In this case it's #2. Probably.
Here's the litany of FAIL in the post.
1) You cannot combine numbers from different sources like Comscore and IDC and come up with anything BUT bogus numbers. To some degree you can use them to confirm one another or use the numbers from one of these sources to do some analysis but the methods these guys use to come up with their estimates are so divergent that using them in combination results in laughable errors.
So multiplying Amazon's 55% of Android share with 45% of Android's share of the tablet market is wrong. As for why you can see later.
Analysis 101 FAIL.
2) ComScore, is reporting 54.5 percent share of installed base in Feburary. Awesome number...right up until you read that they considered the Nook Tablet as an ebook reader and not a tablet. What? Why would you do that? They're both in the same freaking category...B&N had 3.6% sales share in Feb according to IDC and given the head start for the Nook Color the Nook family of tablet's installed base wasn't negligible.
Another Analysis 101 FAIL for not actually looking at the methodology.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57422288-92/kindle-fire-grabs-half-of-android-share-in-february/
3) From that same article you can see a like to the IDC report on another CNet article. Which if you go read indicates a 45% share of 2012 Q4 SALES. You shouldn't multiply SALE share with INSTALLED BASE share and not expect really stupid numbers as result. Like 30M Kindle Fires sold.
What's even more amusing is that IDC report clearly provided the IDC estimates of Amazon Kindle shipments and share in Q4: 4.7M Kindles and 16.8% share.
I prefer to make up my own numbers as opposed to reading FAIL.
Taken together you seriously start wondering about his critical thinking abilities and how bogus his eInk numbers are.
But the real kicker is in a discussion about the relative merits of eInk vs LCD and how eInk is Teh Doomed he completely ignored the biggest recent development for eInk eBooks: The B&N Nook with GlowLight. The equalizer for reading in the dark for eInk.
Seriously, the guy is a freaking joke.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-57396855-64/ipad-and-kindle-fire-both-strong-in-recent-quarter-says-idc/
This is assuming that IDC's 55% share for the iPad is anywhere close to the truth even for CY12 Q4.
That's a poor example to use. Most manufacturers sell products directly as well as through third party retailers. It's true that Apple has stores as well, but so did (do) a number of these other companies. Many weren't successful, and so they were closed.
But look at Dell, HP, Sony, Nintendo, etc. they all have brick and mortar stores. So does Microsoft these days. Many others sell through websites. You could say that almost all of Target's (and Amazon's, and WalMart's, etc.) manufacturers and suppliers are competitors to some extent. But it isn't actually true. Not in the way you think.
But Amazon is primarily a retailer in competition with all other retailers. They sell the same products Target does. They even have small independent stores selli g through them, which is even more competition to Target. Why should Target help them? It's curious as to why they even thought it was a good idea in the beginning. The idea of the Fire is to try to get more people to buy from Amazon's site through it. That directly impacts Targets business.
While iPads and other tablets can be used for that, and undoubtedly are, it's not their primary purpose. The Nook is mostly for books, which isn't a big part of Target's business, so it means less.
It probably comes down to two basic basic principles. One is that you shouldn't be aiding your main competitors. That's what Target was doing by selling these. I don't know why they did so in the beginning. There was never a way that they would be making a good profit on the sales unless Amazon was taking an even bigger loss on each sale.
The second is that you try to figure how many units you will move within time periods. If you don't meet what you figure is going to add to your sales for the space you are allocating, as well as warehouse space, training, sales costs, etc. then you get rid of it.
Floor and shelf space is at a premium in a B&M store. There is a fixed amount. Often, manufacturers pay retailers for floor and shelf space. It's that limited. That's why new products have problems getting shown, and older ones that still sell, but not so well, are often withdrawn.
So Target has to look at the square footage, and decide whether the sales from the product there is making more or less than the average product that could be displayed in that space. When you take the possibility that every one of those products you might sell could be taking sales away from you in other areas, then you might decide that the risk is too great.
I understand this from both sides from first being a manufacturer, then having a company that had services and retail goods.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jojo6969
Just like how Amazon sells Apple Products even though they are competitors?
HUGE difference my friend. Amazon is a direct threat to Target's business, they both are general merchandise retailers, one digital, the other brick and mortar. Target probably decided it wouldn't be a good idea to sell a competitors products in their stores, just as you would never see Target's Archer Farms brand products in a Wal-Mart.
Amazon sells a few Apple products because this is what people want to buy, they would be dumb to exclude Apple's products, which could potentially lead to other purchases. Apple and Amazon are not direct competitors as many seem to think. The Fire is a food cart, meant to sell warez, the iPad is a car designed to be driven.
The estimates for Fire sales during the holiday quarter ranged from 3 million to 6 million. Most estimates for that period now have converged to between 3 and 4 million. Sales have considerably tapered off since then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
The estimates for Fire sales during the holiday quarter ranged from 3 million to 6 million. Most estimates for that period now have converged to between 3 and 4 million. Sales have considerably tapered off since then.
Anecdotally with the refurbs selling for $139 there's been a lot of sales around my office. Folks that were on the fence simply pulled the trigger. Unlike the RIM and HP fire sales it's a product that is doing very well.
Samsung must be really annoyed that the 7" tablet price cratered since Amazon came on the scene.
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbyrn
Amazon promotes using competitor's brick and mortar stores as nothing more than showrooms for people to buy direct from Amazon. For Target and the others to promote Amazon products is like cutting your own throat.
Originally Posted by thataveragejoe
^This exactly. Amazon also promotes scanning barcodes from stores to comparison shop. This is all about Target v Amazon, nothing more. Nothing to do with Apple, Kindle sales, tablets or any other conspiracy theory.
thataveragejoe Johnson is right about markbyrn Johnson being right.
I didn't even know that Target was selling Amazon stuff. I guess they will probably drop Amazon gift cards, too (I'm only guessing that such a thing exists).
We discussed this a couple of weeks ago when Best Buy announced their down-sizing. Difficult for the brick-and-mortars to compete with the online stores when they are carrying the showroom overhead for everybody, and depending on your location, the online stores don't charge sales tax. I'm a little surprised about Target, though. I would have guessed that Target has enough other stuff (things that don't really benefit you to buy online, i.e. laundry detergent, etc.) that it wouldn't really matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Quote:
Originally Posted by I am a Zither Zather Zuzz
Yet another nasty baseless accusation?
But I'll let it slide. There are many possibilities here.
Some folks take Target at its word - that it is paring its lineup in favor of what sells. That makes little sense to me because the Kindle line sells much more volume than the Nook.
However, we need to keep in mind that M$ just made a huge investment in the Nook - so maybe Target is looking forward to expected future volume. If so, then they have a lot of confidence in the future growth rate of the Nook.
It may be that the Kindle is selling TOO well, and that due to its volume, too much other stuff is being sold to Target customers via the Kindle. It is reasonable to think that Amazon is selling lots of stuff via the Kindle, as was rumored to be its intent when it launched at a very low price. Amazon has a huge overlap with Target in many categories - homewares, staples, etc. Could be that Target didn't want to sell a "Portal to Amazon" device in their stores. While there is some overlap with Target's wares from the iPad and the Nook. For the most part, those devices are used to buy digital goods, most in the form of data, rather than tangible goods like sheets and plastic stuff.
Or it could be that Apple is strongarming Target to get rid of the Kindle. I doubt that.
You seldom fail to crack me up.
It probably comes down to two basic basic principles. One is that you shouldn't be aiding your main competitors. That's what Target was doing by selling these. I don't know why they did so in the beginning. There was never a way that they would be making a good profit on the sales unless Amazon was taking an even bigger loss on each sale.
The second is that you try to figure how many units you will move within time periods. If you don't meet what you figure is going to add to your sales for the space you are allocating, as well as warehouse space, training, sales costs, etc. then you get rid of it.
Floor and shelf space is at a premium in a B&M store. There is a fixed amount. Often, manufacturers pay retailers for floor and shelf space. It's that limited. That's why new products have problems getting shown, and older ones that still sell, but not so well, are often withdrawn.
So Target has to look at the square footage, and decide whether the sales from the product there is making more or less than the average product that could be displayed in that space. When you take the possibility that every one of those products you might sell could be taking sales away from you in other areas, then you might decide that the risk is too great.
I understand this from both sides from first being a manufacturer, then having a company that had services and retail goods.
Good points.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahmlco
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
See http://www.iSights.org/2012/04/the-death-of-e-ink-and-the-dedicated-e-book-reader-1.html
Seeing as how Amazon has not, and will not announce how many Fires it has sold. A telling comment from BGR: "...OEMs using the Android platform aren’t really revealing the their true sales number, what most of them reveal are the numbers of units shipped, and this doesn’t mean they were sold. Second, if the tablets are not sold, retail stores ship the unsold devices back to where they came from and no one really looks at the return number or the number of devices returned to the manufacturers. And third, if there really are more Android tablets than iPads, then why is it that 88% of web traffic generated by tablets are from iPads? Are Android tablet users not using their devices to browse the web? Think about it."
So your source is pulling numbers out of a region of netherness that does not reflect, in any way that could be considered factual, the actual sales of the Fire. Given that Andy Rubin (head honcho for Android at Google for the less well informed) stated recently for AllThingsD that there are 12 million Android tablets in operation today (Feb, 2012). He didn't elaborate on how he determined that number, but taken at face value for the moment, that compares to 67 million iPads. Assuming generously that the Fire represents 50% or so of all Androids in operation today (for the sake of the argument only) that represents only ~6 million Fires. For the math challenged, 6 million does not equal 30 million.
But hey, let's give this source the benefit of the doubt for a moment, and dive into how comScore came up with the reported numbers.. According to the article they determined the numbers using what ComScore calls the Device Essentials measure:
"Device Essentials is based on comScore’s Unified Digital Measurement (UDM) data, which uses census-level information from tagged web page content. Device Essentials includes reporting of brand and operating system for digital devices and Internet page views from computers, smartphones, and tablets. Using this new method of analysis, comScore has reported that the Amazon Kindle Fire has doubled its share of the Android tablet market in two months, giving them the lead in the Android tablet market. Check out the graph below to see a breakdown of the Android tablet numbers." [chart removed] the footnote to the chart states this:"comScore Device Essentials measures unique devices accessing the web during the time period noted, including home, enterprise and secondary devices across all groups."
So this is not a measure of sales, this is a measure of web hits from "tagged web page content". There is no validation of this measure against absolute sales into or out of channel of this measure, so a check of the amount of moss growing on th enorth side of trees in the Amazon compound would be as valid a measure.
Referbs can't be quoted as an additional sale though. So they're coming from those sent back for whatever reason, which if what we read is correct, is mostly returns from unhappy customers, plus those that were returned under warranty for repair, which usually themselves were originally broken units.
Point in fact for my posting aboce comes from comScore's SEC filing:
"Our digital marketing intelligence platform is comprised of proprietary databases and a computational infrastructure that measures, analyzes and reports on digital activity. The foundation of our platform is data collected from our comScore panel of more than two million Internet users worldwide who have granted us explicit permission to confidentially measure their Internet usage patterns, online and certain offline buying behavior and other activities. By applying advanced statistical methodologies to our panel data, we project consumers’ online behavior for the total online population and a wide variety of user categories."
Their methodology has been generally criticized for no accuracy validation.
The Kindle Fire is probably not giving retailers huge margins, and sales through the Kindle store are going straight to Amazon. It's not like the Xbox, where they make a small margin on the consoles, but also get to sell the games. They sell the hardware Kindle hardware only and get no business afterward. The same could be said about the iOS devices, but there are tonnes of peripherals for the iPod through iPad (even high-margin Bose stereos that use iPhones/iPods). Plus there are iTunes gift cards and the sheer volume of the Apple sales.
So it's probably a mix of these factors and some Apple favouritism/conspiracy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahmlco
Half of Android tablet sales??? According to the following article, Apple has sold 67 million iPads since its introduction two years ago. Amazon started selling the Fire last November... and has sold nearly 30 million of them.
That's half of APPLE'S sales, in just five months...
See http://www.iSights.org/2012/04/the-death-of-e-ink-and-the-dedicated-e-book-reader-1.html
Those numbers don't make sense, a quarterly figure for Amazon Fire sales has been derived based on a percentage of total sales of iPads since 2010 (67 million), when the figure should have been based on last quarters sales of iPads (12 million).
50% of 12 million DOES NOT EQUAL 30 million.