SA not ready for e-books

[NarrowBandFtw]

Not really, it is about the same as other electronics.

it is NOT, i bought a Canon DSLR from best buy in Atlanta, almost within 10 ZAR the same price as Cape Town retailers, same goes for CPU's, PSU's, graphics cards, monitors

check if you like, go compare a nice sample on takealot to newegg etc, won't flood you with examples, but trust me, the kindle is special, even in it's niche market, the Kobo sells locally for the same price as overseas, not 66% higher, same type of device, same shipping costs apply, same taxes everything, yet no massive markup ...

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

It is $139, but there is shipping and VAT on top of that.

shipping and sales tax applies to other electronic goods as well, yet only the kindle has this big discrepancy (only example i know of rather)

i can do and have done similar direct comparisons with PC components and they are in line with US prices, but not the kindle

 

[AfricanTech]

Well, something is inflating the kindle then. Takealot is selling the with ads one for 2099.

Interesting, I wonder if there is some kind of surcharge that we don't know about or if it's a volume thing..

Those other examples you quoted all have local agents, amazon only runs a call centre here

 

[AfricanTech]

it is NOT, i bought a Canon DSLR from best buy in Atlanta, almost within 10 ZAR the same price as Cape Town retailers, same goes for CPU's, PSU's, graphics cards, monitors

check if you like, go compare a nice sample on takealot to newegg etc, won't flood you with examples, but trust me, the kindle is special, even in it's niche market, the Kobo sells locally for the same price as overseas, not 66% higher, same type of device, same shipping costs apply, same taxes everything, yet no massive markup ...

I wonder if the kindle has been defined by retailers as luxury good that will sustain a higher than usual markup

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

Well, something is inflating the kindle then. Takealot is selling the with ads one for 2099.

Interesting, I wonder if there is some kind of surcharge that we don't know about or if it's a volume thing..

Those other examples you quoted all have local agents, amazon only runs a call centre here

i know a few developers that would take offence to you calling their 50 plus man developer house in cape town that created amazon's cloud a call centre

interesting tidbit, i've heard if you sign on as an employee of amazon locally you get a free kindle when you start as a welcoming gift

 

[AfricanTech]

i know a few developers that would take offence to you calling their 50 plus man developer house in cape town that created amazon's cloud a call centre

interesting tidbit, i've heard if you sign on as an employee of amazon locally you get a free kindle when you start as a welcoming gift

Thanks.

Didn't know that - only knew about their call centre

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

I am one of the people that will continue to buy physical books. And i know a lot of people like me.

My bookshelf grows with each book i buy, and it is an awesome thing to have.

I can sell my books one day should i fall on hard times.
I can give my books to my kids, friends, other family members to read. I can donate them to the needy etc.

You cant do any of these things with ebooks.

Really hope physical books remain for a long long time to come.

EBooks are much cheaper than physical books and the price difference between the two is often greater than the second hand value of the physical books.

We saw this when my wife moved from buying physical books to ebooks. We often found that we paid less than the book exchange.

With ebooks you also get access to millions of classics for free.

 

[Mr Feesh]

hope my varsity books are available in ebooks, just checked quickly for one module they come to R1500 :0

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

EBooks are much cheaper than physical books and the price difference between the two is often greater than the second hand value of the physical books.

Not sure if others have kids using tablets at school, but eBooks are not substantially cheaper - i.e. R1100 for ebooks vs R1800 for print (http://www.maramedia.co.za/home/price_list) - I think most local publishers of eBooks (especially education) still make big profits, especially when you look at economy of scale. TBH a school eBook should cost no more than R30 (instead of R110).

 

[krycor]

I think the issue is this.. if the price of an 'eBook' is only 25% cheaper.. i'd go for the print as nothing beats it for studying. reading novels = meh.. one off.. still its like music conundrum.. epub thought they could rake in larger profit which is ridiculous.

In the music model albums become song sales so the cost of music appeared to drop albeit the album cost is close to what t was.. except song costs have remained more or less constant.

Magazines are the ones that really started this nonsense of keeping cost the same... but wait, change is coming there because websites = ad revenue hence free, paid web = lesser/no ads plus premium content.. in SA u pay for digital magazines with ads.. how hilarious isnt that? content wise magazines are often a bit light ive noticed with some just advertorials.

For eBook model unless its >50% cheaper i don't see the point. For study stuff i saw some offer electronic resources with eBook(study guides, refs etc) which makes the value proposition better vs print version so cost being only slightly cheaper or same made sense

 

[MrGray]

For studying nothing beats physical books. Nothing worse than tabbing back and forth between an e-book or pdf manual and whatever you're trying to learn to do on the same pc. When you're learning something new you need to have pages bookmarked all over the place and be able to flip back and forth instantly as well as make margin notes, etc.

 

[Sonic2k]

A) They have deleted stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle#Privacy, but they promise now only to do it in special copy-right violation situations. But things change...
B) They can also (obviously) analyze your reading habits very carefully
C) There has been no revelation of subtle modification (rewriting history) that I know of, but it's totally possible, and referenced (as a political control mechanism) in the book (Orwell's '1984') that they did delete (see point A)

So that happens on forums too... nothing new.