WALMART’S FORAY INTO THE AMAZON: Who’s the real victim of the price war?
In the New York Times last week, Motoko Rich reported on the escalating price war between Amazon and Walmart.com, the casualties of which are, ostensibly, new authors.
After three rounds of raises and re-raises (or lowers and re-lowers), Walmart.com dropped the asking price on some of this winter’s potential semi-literary blockbusters to $9; Amazon is charging $8.99.
Why, argues David Gernert, John Grisham’s literary agent, “If you can buy Stephen King’s new novel or John Grisham’s Ford Country for $10…would you buy a brilliant first novel for $25? I think we underestimate the effect to which extremely discounted best sellers take the consumer’s attention away from emerging writers.”
His argument assumes, perhaps wrongly, that readers buy indiscriminately. If a consumer finds herself standing before the new releases kiosk at Barnes & Noble, faced with buying an E. L. Doctorow novel for $30 or a King novel for $9, she’ll plump for the latter. Or maybe she’ll exercise some other discretion.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:45 am
I cannot imagine buying a book based solely upon price. If I want the Lydia Davis collection or the new Maile Meloy collection or any other work of literature, I’m not going to buy a Robert Patterson book because it’s cheaper. That said, sometimes I am scared off from buying a book by a new author if it’s over $30. Before I spend that much on a book by someone I’ve never previously read, I sit down in the bookstore and read at least five or ten pages, as well as a trusted review or two, whereas if it’s by someone I know, I see it and buy it regardless of price.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:26 am
This looks less like an attempt to compete with Amazon than Target, which has had a lot of success with book sales. My impression is that Walmart’s customer base is predominantly male while Target’s is predominantly female. Women buy most of the books in this country, and if Walmart can pull them in, they’ll capture more household good sales to boot. The books will be loss-leaders for toilet paper and laundry soap and anything else people otherwise buy at Target.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/20/AR2009102003424.html