Posted on 02/01/2014 2:51:31 PM PST by RoosterRedux
Having raised existential questions about why we need brick-and-mortar stores, Amazon is now looking to help out its physical competitors. The e-tailing giant is reportedly planning to offer its popular Kindle tablet as the centerpiece of a new checkout system.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the plan will provide credit card readers as well as Kindles. Citing “people briefed on the company’s plans,” the Journal noted that the rollout is not yet set in stone and could be “delayed, altered, or canceled.” On the other hand, it could be ready as soon as the summer.
In December, Amazon bought the technology and engineering team of the San Francisco-based startup GoPago, a mobile payments company that developed point-of-sale systems designed around smartphones and tablets. The GoPago system included an app, a tablet, a credit card reader, a locked cash box, a printer, and even insurance. The GoPago business and customer relationships were purchased separately by mobile payments service provider DoubleBeam.
Smaller retailers first
Given that the world’s largest virtual store has no significant brick-and-mortar retailing experience, Amazon would likely have to leverage its online presence with retailer coupons or discounts to compete with the likes of NCR, VeriFone Systems, Square, and others. Smaller retailers are expected to be the initial targets and, to entice the pitch, Amazon might also offer website development, data analysis, and other services.
(Excerpt) Read more at venturebeat.com ...
The ebooks are a real licrative deal for Amazon; you do all the work and submit the finished product; they make 2/3 the profit. There’s not the usual costs of publishing and promotion as with a standard book. That’s my chief complaint. Its money for almost nothing for them.
Check out the complete rates in postings below.
Also, what about people who have sold 10’s of thousands of .99 books. 50,000 x .35 equals over $17,000. And yes, there are people doing this.
I use American Express for everything. I watch my account online and one click to dispute the charge and it is gone. They recently called hubby and said.....are you in London? He said no and they cancelled his card and overnighted him a new one.
They are very good for any kind of fraud.
I was speaking of non-book retail sales. This is what he does with affiliate sellers. They find and market products on AZ and AZ then starts selling it themselves and undercuts you both in price and s/h costs. They, of course, have huge advantages of scale that small retailers can never hope to match.
AZ essentially uses affiliates as product researchers and they pay AZ for the privilege.
This is great for consumers, but if you’re in business of retail sales, think very carefully about giving this 2 ton Gorilla access to your product and sales data.
If an author puts a title into the Kindle Prime program, there are some new deals and situations that apply. One is that your title can be “borrowed” by readers in the Prime program for 2 weeks. In a sense that is giving them away, right? But when you have 0.01% market penetration and name recognition, the key is just to get folks to read your stuff. As one book pub guy told me, “You should drop them from airplanes.” I used to worry about being pirated if I went to e-books, now I don’t even care. The more readers, the better in the end.
Titles in Kindle Prime can also be marked as no cost for 5 days out of 90. How an author chooses to use the “free run” days—or not—varies widely. Again, it’s a case of introducing more readers to your “brand,” so in the end, you will also sell more books. I like to announce them ahead of time on places like Facebook or here so that a lot of readers who are in tight times can experience them now while they are relevant. In the end, many of them will buy a Kindle e-book, printed hard copy book, or audio book. So it’s all good. A rising tide etc.
This especially caught my attention as I have often thought, "WHY do people NOT question this?"
We use a system of payments that others built on the cheap without needed security, and when it bites us in the axx we’re (consumers) are told to buy ID protection at $20/month. This is total BS.
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