Walmart Now Offering New Hardcovers For $9
Walmart just tried to undercut Amazon on, of all things, books. They've announced that they're now selling the "top 10 pre-selling books" for $9 each, with free home delivery. Amazon has responded by dropping its price to $9 on the same titles, but their free shipping doesn't kick in until you buy $25 worth of merchandise (or pay the annual fee for Amazon Prime). Price war!
Walmart is also now selling over 200 current best-sellers at at least half off the list price.
We randomly picked a best seller from the list—A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris—and compared prices, and Walmart was cheaper at $11.50 versus Amazon's $13.47. With shipping, Walmart's total price comes out to $13.47, exactly the same as Amazon's price before any shipping costs are figured in.
As we wrote above, if you have Amazon Prime or bundle the book with other merch to hit the $25 free shipping mark, Walmart loses the price war. Still, it's a pretty competitive offering, and we assume it will appeal to people who are already shopping on Walmart's site.
Publishers and authors have been upset at Amazon's $10 price point for new ebooks ever since the Kindle store launched, because they worry that it's training consumers to expect an unrealistically low price that will never be profitable in the real marketplace—that is, in a world where Amazon and Walmart aren't using books as loss leaders. Smaller booksellers can't begin to compete on pricing, of course, so if you value your local non-chain bookstore you might want to keep giving them your business. For the rest of us, as long as the big retailers keep eating the costs of such steep discounts, it's a great time to buy books. Or at least, new releases and top selling titles.
"Wal-Mart offers new books for $10" [Associated Press via Publishers Weekly]
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The biggest competition with Amazon for me is the library that's a block away. Instead of paying $30 for a book (is it a Blu-ray disc or something?) I can get it for free. Sure, there's 8 holds on Dan Brown's new novel but it isn't a movie, it'll probably be read once. Once a book is priced over $25, I'm waiting for the paperback.
Title for Palin's book should have been "Going Away".
This makes since, since readers would represent a new market for Wal-Mart
So she did leave the Governorship just to make money with her newfound fame.
Truth is, the price war only matters to the people who are going to be swayed in the first place - just like the competition small, non-chain stores have with amazon and B&N. Local stores need to be able to offer customers incentives. I already don't buy as many books as I used to, but I have to pay $28 for a new hardback book? I would rather wait a long time for the paperback or buy it online because local stores don't offer incentives. I had to save money long before we were told it was fashionable and books is an area that I keep an eye on - but I'll still never shop with Wal-Mart.
There should be a special island set aside for her, not to mention Jon and Kate and every other reality tv star. Go. Away.
Sorry, I have to go with Amazon for anything media related. Walmart sells only "family friendly" and edited music, etc. I recall buying a Metallica doubleset years ago. I asked the girl if it was edited, and she said she didn't think so, but if it was, I could bring it back. I got home, and sure enough, there was a loud "beep" on every profanity. I brought it back and the manager said exchange only, and wouldn't budge. And that's when the boycott began. So no books/movies/games/music from Walmart, ever.
Hmm...nope, still not enough to get me to set foot in a Walmart. They're one of the companies that I absolutely refuse to support.
I'm curious if Wal-mart refuses to carry certain titles as they do with their music department. They refuse to carry cds with a parental notice sticker. Does anyone know if they have had any issues with book titles?
Sorry, this is still not going to get me to go to Wal-Mart for a book, especially when I have Amazon Prime.
@kyle4:
For me, the biggest competition with Amazon is half.com (and amazon's own marketplace). If a book or CD has been out a while, it's often next to nothing used.
The library where I am never seems to have what I want, and they charge to reserve books online. If I can get a used book for <$5 shipped, it's a no-brainer - I don't have to read it on their time frame or remember to bring it back and I can reread it whenever I want.
I wouldn't go to Walmart if they gave the books away for free.
We get most of our books and DVDs from the library. When we do buy something, we check the Costco price versus the Amazon price and then buy accordingly.
Amazon is smartest when they drop a price that would normally be just over $25 to just under, because then we're urged to buy a second item to get the free shipping. As with the recent Wolverine DVD, where Costco had it for $26ish and Amazon had it for $23ish but I haven't gotten around to finding something else small to get with it that I actually want, which is why I remain sadly without my DVD of hot-guy-ass-kickery-goodness.
@kyle4: Same. Except for DVDs of things that I like to whip out a parties (Big Lebowski anyone?) I don't really buy movies or books anymore. I use Netflix for DVDs, because there are very few movies I want to watch more than once, and I use the library for books.
I never really liked the feel of new books anyways. And I'm generally so behind the times that it doesn't matter to me if I can't get a bestseller right away.
her book is actually a book? I was expecting a pop-up book.
Great. You just HAD to pick that pic. Now all we'll see are Palin flame wars.
I've never seen a hardback coloring book.
*looks at pre-sale list*
None of these books are worth a trip to Wal-Mart to get them cheap. NOTHING is worth a trip to Wal-Mart to get it cheap.
/snobbery
I'm a big walmart supporter, but seriously, walmart isn't really on my list of places to buy books. When I'm extremely bored I look at the "book island" they usually have. And it sucks, terribly. Most of the books on it wouldn't be good even as firewood. This won't help.
@kyle4: Hey - Amazon already adjusted my pre-order for Stephen King's Under the Dome down to $9 thanks to this.
Nice.
And you know that there's 9 bucks worth of paper in this one alone...
Sweet!! Now I can add to my collection of James Patterson hardcovers.
Yeah, but I know they ban certain magazines for non-family friendly covers, because they might have a girl in a bikini, so I have an issue with that too.
They have great selection on these too. You can choose fundamentalist religion or conservative politics!
@michigan2cv: In order for it to be a popup book, there would have to be something behind it holding the figure up. This would not apply in her case.
Wow, now prices are even lower on shoddily written, heavily promoted pieces of drek that we'll forget about a few months after they are published.
I can't help but think that this is a continuation of our disposable culture. You just know that these books will be in $1 Each bins at used booksellers within a year or two. I'm already seeing most of what's listed here in the Donation bin at my local library, which used to be stocked only with old exercise, romance and self-help books, along with the occasional children's fare when someone went off to college.
I also have to wonder how this conflates with the fact that Walmart has decided to scale-down or eliminate most of their DVD sales. Are books really all that much more profitable than DVDs, even at this level of discount? If so, why?
@madanthony: I've been spoiled living in Connecticut, don't get to say that too often. While the website is cluedgy Iconn lets me find and get books and articles from the whole state include the Universities.
Not the greatest for reserving best sellers but if you want something off beat you can get it. I was working on a project a couple of weeks ago and found an interesting article in a technical journal. It was $12 per article or $180 for the year to get whole articles. Through the state library site I got it legally for free in five minutes.
@GitEmSteveDave_#GitEmSteveDaveRocks: Maverick (The Mel Gibson one) is one of my most favorite movies that most people don't seem to remember anything about. So funny.
@Cant_stop_the_rock: It's obvious your CTRL+V button works. If Chris didn't want snarky Sarah Palin comments, he wouldn't have baited the hook.
I'll admit that I'm kind of pumped about Under the Dome for 9 bucks, though.
@cabjf: I go to Target and the local store a lot more than Wal-Mart, but they sell a ton of romance novels and trust me, they aren't edited out so that every sex scene turns into "and then they decided to wait for marriage." There is, however, a huge Christian book section a couple aisles away if you're into that sort of thing.
I don't blame you at all for the CD thing, though. That's bullshit.
@shepd: I don't think they're looking for a killer app product, just another thing to keep the faithful singing their tunes and showing up once a week.
I know two people who would gleefully fill another bag with books that, once home, will be added to the rest of the "bags under the table." Nice people, but they definitely have issues with impulse control and a bit of escapism. I think that's a big part of any retail these days and WM is the master. Call it "shopping disorder maintenance"?
Oh, this seems bad. Wal-mart lied. I just tried to pre-order Sarah's book and this is their message:
This item cannot be shipped to the address you entered due to state restrictions. Please go back and remove this item from your order, or enter a different shipping address.
Ohio hasn't seceded yet. What gives?
@kyle4: I had a post 3/4 typed and the internets ate it. But the gist of it was:
This isn't particularly useful to me because I don't read best-sellers (unless my book club happens to settle on one). Wal-Mart, B&N, and even local stores don't cater to my needs or tastes, but Amazon can get me just about anything.
The last couple books I ordered were a semi-scholarly one on an archaeological dig at Catalhoyuk in Turkey, the Serenity RPG for my husband for Xmas, Julia Child's cookbook (okay, that I could have gotten locally), and a couple of weird children's books for the baby.
I'm sure amazon does a hopping business in best-sellers, but I suspect the bulk of their book business is actually the "long tail" that brick-and-mortar places don't deal with.
Title for palins book shouldove been "going maverick"