Struggling company B&N is attempting to get in on the ever-increasing tablet market with their product the B&N ‘Nook’.
On Friday they unveiled a one-week deal, which begins this Sunday, in which consumers buying a Nook HD+ tablet, with a starting price of $269, will receive a $79 Nook Simple Touch reader for free.
I’m not sure if anyone told B&N that a tablet also works as an e-reader.
Over the last 52 weeks, the stock of B&N has had a low of $10.45 a share on the Nasdaq. A Nasdaq article says, “Barnes & Noble’s new deal is a bid to not only generate greater interest in the Nook tablet, which has struggled to compete with Amazon.com Inc.’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire and Apple Inc.’s (AAPL).”
Mashable reports, “In its last fiscal quarter, B&N reported that Nook sales, which include sales of digital content and accessories as well as devices, fell 26% from the same period a year ago.”
President of digital production at Nook, Jamie Iannone said the rationale for giving away the tablet e-reader combo is, “that the 9-inch tablet is “perfect” for movies, apps and magazines, while the Nook Simple Touch is “ideal” for reading books.”
While that logic does make sense – it’s simply not how human behavior works. We’re not likely to purchase two things that essentially perform the same function. One could argue that consumers would be likely to gift the e-reader to someone while keeping the Nook and while that might be true, will it really help Nook sales in the long run?
Instead of giveaways B&N should really focus on better product development and advertising that communicates a cool, trendy product. If they fail to do so, it seems like the ‘Nook’ will be left in some cranny we won’t bother looking under.
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