Barnes & Noble Weighs Its Nook Losses

Leslie Kaufmann writing for the New York Times:

Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest book chain, warned that when it reports fiscal 2013 third-quarter results on Thursday, losses in its Nook Media division — which includes sales of e-books and devices — will be greater than the year before and that the unit’s revenue for all of fiscal 2013 would be far below projections it gave of $3 billion.

Initially, I thought that B&N would have a distinct advantage over the Amazon Kindle (and other e-book readers) in this space because of the physical store presence.  You can’t walk into a B&N location without immediately running into a Nook kiosk/bar/counter.  The devices are there to demo before purchase and there is almost always a knowledgeable employee there to help move the sale along.

Then I used a Nook…  After that experience, there are no surprises with the results being discussed.  

Amazon has not needed to have physical stores to demo the Kindle.  Within the non-iPad e-reader market, the Kindle has been the dominant player for several years now.  If someone is trying to make a purchase decision, chances are a family member or friend has a Kindle they can try out.  Amazon has been pushing the Kindle on the front page of its website, which gets far more “eye traffic” than B&N’s foot traffic could ever hope to achieve.