Kindle 2 Price Drop

Here’s a piece of news most of you were waiting for! How do I know? Well, on a daily basis I check list of search keywords that you used to find my blog and “Kindle price drop” was the one I saw quite often.

Kindle 2 now sells for $299.00, $60.00 down from original price of $359.00 that endured for very long time. It’s ready to ship on the same day you order it. Kindle DX still sells for $489.00 and is still on back-order. Though wait time is now reduced to 3-5 weeks from 4-6 one week ago.

I believe that much more people would now buy Kindle 2 because psychologically there is a big difference between these prices. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kindle 2 would become backordered just as Kindle DX unless Amazon was planning this move for a long time and stocked up before they announced it.

Do I foresee more price drops for Kindle2? Not in the near future. Amazon is already selling the device very close to what is speculated to be manufacturing cost and they are not making much profit on books either because they are paying publisher commissions based on the paperback price of ~$20.00 per book.

Why are they doing this? Definitely not because they feel altruistic. Amazon is the leading player in the eBook market right now but they are still not as secure and established as Google is in Internet Search or Microsoft is in Operating Systems and Office Software. Amazon is trying for it very hard, just as there several other players that are trying hard to dethrone Amazon. That is why (in my opinion) Amazon hardly makes any profit on Kindle devices and eBooks right now – they are trying to grab the market that is currently exploding as fast as the Internet was before. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google’s announcement about their digital bookstore had much to do with this price drop.

Will there be price drops for Kindle DX? Definitely not before it will be in stock again. Which will be for at least another month if not more. If we’ll finally see Kindle Textbook Store by the start of the next college year it will cause another spike in demand and DX might go on back-order again thus eliminating chances of a price drop. On the other hand should Amazon increase their manufacturing capacities a price drop for Kindle DX when textbook store will open would be a logical move.

In case you just paid $359.00 for Kindle 2 there’s good news for you too.  If it was less than 30 days ago you can contact Kindle support and get $60.00 refund. Here’s how to do it:

6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Pacific Time, seven days a week. You can also reach us by calling one of these numbers: Inside the United States: 1-866-321-8851; Outside the United States: 1-206-266-0927.

Or go to this page and click the ‘Contact Us’ button to have them call you back.