Shop Talk
Retailers, consumers and prices
from MediaFile:
Why won’t Amazon say how many Kindles it’s sold?
Something about returning from the Christmas holidays makes people want to show off what they received – a new sweater donned, a new gadget subtly pulled out at meetings, a few extra pounds padding the belly.
Jeff Bezos doesn't like this tradition. He will hint at the generous present that consumers gave to Amazon in the form of surprisingly strong sales, but he won't offer details.
Bezos wants you to know that his Kindle – the e-book reader that has done a remarkably good job surviving in the age of the iPad – was Amazon's “bestselling product of all time.” How many Kindles did Amazon sell? We don't know because Amazon isn't saying.
What Amazon does say is that the third generation of the Kindle surpassed even the number of Harry Potter 7 books it sold. Which is kind of disingenuous because Kindles are sold primarily through Amazon, while Harry Potter books are available in nearly every bookstore. But it does offer a hint: Some 5 million copies of Harry Potter have sold on Amazon since 2007, one analyst estimates.
Usually, analysts step in to offer sales figures that Amazon won't. But in the case of the Kindle, they can't seem to agree. One reckons Amazon has sold 5.4 million Kindles in 2010, while another pegs that number at 8 million.
Either number is impressive, so why doesn't Amazon share it? Over on Quora, a former Amazon employee suggested it's because the disclosure would help Amazon's competitors. But nobody sells Kindle's but Amazon, and few e-readers are even close to it in sales, unless you count the iPad.
But the iPad is a tablet, and the cheapest version of the iPad costs four times Kindle's $139 price tag. Besides, Apple makes a point in bragging about how many iPads, iPod Touches and iPhones it sells each quarter, and it only seems to fuel sales.
from MediaFile:
When gamers hit Toys R Us and other tales of Black Friday
Sprinkled among the snaking lines of parents at a Toys R Us in New Jersey on Black Friday were diehard gamers. Many had no children to spoil. Nor were they particularly happy to be in the Toys R Us; but with gaming hardware fast selling out across the region, they followed the scent of the deal.
The Kinect moved especially fast, if early anecdotal evidence is any measure. Brisk sales of hardware like the PlayStation3, Xbox and Microsoft Kinect on the nation's biggest annual shopping spree also bode well for software sales, says Mike Hickey, a Janco Partners analyst.
But which games were enticing fans to shell out on Black Friday?
“ We’re seeing strong sales of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft), Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft), Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard), Red Dead Redemption (Take-Two Interactive), Fallout: New Vegas (Bethesda), Gran Turismo 5 (Polyphony Digital) and Donkey Kong (Nintendo),” Hickey said.
Many of the hottest video items weren't even on sale. The Microsoft Kinect, which was not discounted at any retailer on Black Friday (in fact, the price got jacked up on many secondary sellers' websites), was out of stock both in stores and online at WalMart, Target and Best Buy.
GameStop also weighed in on Friday morning, telling Reuters about the traffic at its 800 US stores which opened at midnight, which were helped in part by the interest in the Kinect. “Preliminary reports from our stores record a lot of excitement,” said GameStop’s president Tony Bartel,” and there were many customers lined up at 5 am when the rest of the stores opened.
NPD analyst Stephen Baker said video games were “one of the better categories this holiday,” but low-priced televisions and aggressively priced laptops were the biggest sellers on Black Friday.
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