Target Abandoning Amazon's Kindle Line Over a 'Conflict'

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welshmousepk

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I find it hilarious that people don't expect this. If you are being undercut by a competitor, you need to find as way to become more competitive. having a hissy fit and refusing to sell their stock won't help.
global commerce is a tough business, and if you can't keep up, you're doomed.
 

ta152h

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[citation][nom]welshmousepk[/nom]I find it hilarious that people don't expect this. If you are being undercut by a competitor, you need to find as way to become more competitive. having a hissy fit and refusing to sell their stock won't help.global commerce is a tough business, and if you can't keep up, you're doomed.[/citation]

Well, it might be that so few were selling due to Amazon under pricing them, it was not economical to keep selling them. Amazon may have been using Target as a showroom, and getting more online purchases that way. Because it sells for only $200, there's no margin on the device, so I can't imagine Amazon would be letting Target have it inexpensively.

The writing of the article is sensationalist and poor, but there is some truth in it. When a manufacturer is also a competitor, its very important to have a cooperative relationship with them. Amazon enticing customers to look somewhere else, and then buy at Amazon is not effectively balancing that sensitive role.

They'll have to figure it out. They normally sell stuff other people make, and having others sell stuff they make is pretty new to them. They're going to learn the hard way, it would seem, by suffering reactions like this from retailers. But they will learn, or simple be unsuccessful. Arrogant companies that make one-sided deals learn that they aren't quite as important, and their position not quite as unassailable, as they thought. It happens all the time.
 

illfindu

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Regardless of weather Apple has any thing to do with this i doubt amazon is to broken hearted there the number one selling android tablet , the amazon market makes more money then google play if any thing this could be worth more as bad press that people will assume its apple * I'am not commenting on Apples connection to this eathier way*
 

xerroz

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[citation][nom]Middleman[/nom]BS. This whole thing has Apple strong-arm written all over it.[/citation]
Makes sense this is what's actually happening since Apple has said they'd open mini-Apple stores inside Targets
 
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Where is this statistic that the Amazon app market makes more money than Google Play coming from? Did you just make that up or do you have a real source?
 

Darkk

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[citation][nom]acadia11[/nom]I just bought my kindle online, it was cheaper than at target ...[/citation]

This is exactly what Target is whining about. Amazon controls the kindle in terms of manufacturing and selling it at whatever price they want. Target made a bad deal with Amazon (devil) and now they are just throwing in the towel.

I wonder if Target is going to have a "fire" sale to clear out all the kindles in stock?

 

alphaalphaalpha

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Amazon doesn't seem to play well with other retailers, but they do seem to try to play well with their customers very much. If Amazon wanted Target to sell Amazon's products, then Target needed to get a cut of the profits or else Target would need to raise the prices of the products from Amazon that Target sells in order to get a profit, thus making them more expensive that buying directly from Amazon.

However, Amazon does seem to be one of the best companies for consumers. They have good prices (if you buy their stuff directly from them) and in my experience with them, top-notch customer service. Their products are also generally good too, especially for their price, even if they aren't the absolute best. Those are fairly respectable things to consider, at least in my opinion.
 

sailfish

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One would have to see the reseller arrangement between Target and Amazon to determine if this was over a pricing issue. Generally speaking, most of those types of arrangements give the reseller a significant discount over the manufacturer's list price, thus, allowing them to offer it at a lower price or add value (e.g., in-store support?).
 
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what i find hilarious is how people refer to amazon as a devil....yet retail chains like target, walmart, etcetera arent. just a few years ago such chains were considered pure evil due to the dramatic effect on small business. my oh my how people change their tune.

agreed... resellers (retail chains) typically get a better deal than what we pay (msrp). epect at least 5-15% less than the lowest amazon.com sale (unless of course amazon is taking a profit loss on sales). if there is a profit loss involved on sales (such as was the case with ps3 units) then there isnt much a retailer can do to combat it. however giving the end customer is NOT looking out for the customer no matter how management tries to make it seem. if retail stores dont learn to adapt to e-business soon they will be in trouble.
 

hoofhearted

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Wow, what does this day to me? Time to start pricing and shopping the other things (soap and toilet paper) at Google and Amazon rather than Target.
 

cknobman

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This is not going to do anything but more harm to Target. Sure they may have been selling Kindles with little to no margin and sure it may have also deterred customers from buying physical movies and books.

BUT

At least they had the opportunity to sell "attachments" and "accessories".

NOW

Customers wont buy squat from Target and just go straight to Amazon for everything.

I mean what does Target think is gonna happen? Customer goes to Target "Oh you dont sell the kindle anymore??? Guess I will just buy a ton of other crap from you then." LOL I dont think so.
 

blazorthon

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[citation][nom]cknobman[/nom]This is not going to do anything but more harm to Target. Sure they may have been selling Kindles with little to no margin and sure it may have also deterred customers from buying physical movies and books.BUTAt least they had the opportunity to sell "attachments" and "accessories".NOWCustomers wont buy squat from Target and just go straight to Amazon for everything.I mean what does Target think is gonna happen? Customer goes to Target "Oh you dont sell the kindle anymore??? Guess I will just buy a ton of other crap from you then." LOL I dont think so.[/citation]

You're assuming that people actually went to stores like Target just because of Amazon products. I highly doubt that this happens much at all. Target probably won't suffer much at all form this unless Amazon takes action, which is unlikely.
 

f-14

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What's likely is that Target is fed up with Amazon's undercutting ways and will rely on Apple and Barnes & Noble to produce eReader revenue.
unofficial word from high up the chain is that the conflict of interest is the bypass way of the non compete agreement target wanted amazon to sign that basically said they would not sell for lower than targets prices which target and apple have an agreement on a fixed higher price.
 

beardguy

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[citation][nom]cknobman[/nom]This is not going to do anything but more harm to Target. Sure they may have been selling Kindles with little to no margin and sure it may have also deterred customers from buying physical movies and books.BUTAt least they had the opportunity to sell "attachments" and "accessories".NOWCustomers wont buy squat from Target and just go straight to Amazon for everything.I mean what does Target think is gonna happen? Customer goes to Target "Oh you dont sell the kindle anymore??? Guess I will just buy a ton of other crap from you then." LOL I dont think so.[/citation]

Your logic makes no sense ... you think that because Target stopped selling Kindles, that everyone is just going to buy everything from Amazon?

I shop at Target regularly and this is going to have no effect on me whatsoever. I'll keep shopping at Target just as much as I used to. Why would you think them not selling Kindles would really matter to most people?

I don't blame Target, after all, why would you continue to support a fierce competitor?
 
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