Smarter Vs Amazon

When books are sold, they are generally offered in either hardcover, paperback, or both. If the option is not given to the consumer, they won’t think twice about the price. However, most of the time both options are offered, and consumers tend to gravitate to one side or the other. When it comes to buying books, the price for paperback copies is generally cheaper than that of hardcover ones. This is to be expected because hardcover books cost more to produce than soft cover books and they last a lot longer for the consumer. However, in buying my Economic Naturalist book (ironically enough), I found that it would have been cheaper for me to buy a hardcover copy than to buy the regular paperback edition. I was shocked and, if it weren’t for a

I stayed confident that I would find the trend duplicated in other books. So, I moved to Amazon.com and found of the eight releases I chose, seven of them were less for hardcover. Of those seven, two were listed on Barnes and Noble’s site with more expensive hardcover editions. At last I had stumbled upon the phenomena I was trying to uncover. Amazon, as it appears, tends to sell hardcover copies for less than their paperback counterparts. The issue with this is that hardcovers are usually more expensive to make and, especially for Amazon, more expensive to ship because of their weight. So, why does Amazon do this? Why do they continue to sell these books for less when everyone else is selling them for

They could be doing this because of a surplus of hardcover books. It could simply be that Amazon has had trouble selling hard copies in the past and is trying to dump inventory. Looking back on the article I found from “The Economist”, it is likely that paperback book sales could be overshadowing the sales of hardcover texts. Another possibility is that Amazon is attempting to undercut competition. By selling hardcover books at a lower price than Barnes and Noble and other book retailers, eventually Amazon can take over the market for hardcover books. Amazon is able to do this without losing any money because of all the membership fees and shipping fees it impose on their customers. Bookstores do not have that extra income, therefore, to make profit on these titles, they need to be sold at a higher price. Amazon, however, is able to set the price lower because the shipping costs are already taken care of. They may even be doing this to effect the demands of the market. Because costs for shipping may drive other book companies to price higher, the demand for these hardcover copies decreases. Amazon is able to scoop up all the lost profit and customers desiring a hardcover copy, and by pricing it lower than soft covers, they can steal some of the paperback customers that are more price elastic. This “No cash left on the table” approach to sales has given Amazon an