# Kindle price reduction at Target ?!



## Ron (Feb 12, 2009)

I went to Target last night and found a very nice Kindle display on the main isle. The price was showing as $259. I finally found someone who works there and informed them that Amazon had reduced their price on Monday to $189. I was informed that just because it is $189 on the internet one should expect that price in the store. After demanding a price check we discovered that Target's price had also been reduced to $189 but no one knew when this had occured, and if I bought one it would wring up at $189 at the register. I then informed that they should change the 2 foot tall price tag to $189 and was told that no one there had the authority to do so.
I promise that I am not making this up.


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## Carol Collett (Oct 4, 2009)

Wonder if anyone from Amazon is on KB and reading this? I can't imagine it would make the dept at Amazon who set up this contract with Target very happy.


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## jasonrw (Jan 2, 2010)

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,26133.msg510140.html#msg510140


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

That's just bad management somewhere down the line mixed with "I don't care" and a bunch of people not willing to take an initiative to get things done.  I guarantee that as soon as Amazon dropped their price on the Kindle that every Target got a price change list with the Kindle on it.  Since it has a giant display they probably already had the extra bits to make it the new price.  The thing with these things is someone has to actually go and change the prices when they get these price change requests and that's where the laziness comes in.  That employee should have been contacting any management he could to find out how he could get that price set correctly, but it would have been going above and beyond so he just opted to wash his hands of it.

I've worked in retail long enough to know how these things and these people work.  I worked in a Sam Goody and we had DVD players for sale.  Selling DVD players at a Sam Goody was a bit like selling a Kindle at Target... okay not that bad, but anyway... I worked in that store a year and was the store manager for another year and during all that time we had this DVD player sitting there at $180 that nobody was buying.  One day I just checked the price out of curiosity... it was ringing up for $20.  So not only had someone ignored the price change in the past, but they told HQ we didn't even have it in stock anymore so they just kept sending the changes for it.  I bought it as a back up DVD player which, of course, I never needed.  My electronics always die on me unless I take measures to insure them, then they work fine.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

I've worked retail, too, selling cameras, TVs and stereos at a discount store. In that setting, the salesperson is key. If they know anything and if they give a fig, they can sell stuff. If not, you might as well buy off the internet; in fact, you'll probably get _better _ information off an internet listing at Amazon.

I hadn't held a Kindle until two days ago. I was at Target looking for something else and I thought I'd stop by the Kindle display and take a look. I'd never even seen a Kindle in the wild! After several minutes of searching, during which I did find the Sony ereader display in the "books" section, I asked if they had Kindles and the clerk very sweetly escorted me to the display about 135 feet away from the books, among the phone accessories.

It was on the end of the aisle, which is good, but there weren't any Kindles on show. Just a bunch of cases. I asked the clerk where the Kindles were and she pointed to the locked cabinet under the display. The Kindles were in boxes, under lock and key. I explained that I was hoping to actually see one and hold it, and she just kind of shrugged, very sweetly, and explained that they didn't have one to display.

So I guess, if you want a Kindle and don't want to wait for the free shipping from Amazon, you can drive to Target and pick one up. If you're on the fence, this Target store isn't going to convert you!

Later that day I happened to see a friend reading her Kindle and finally got to hold one and try it out. Very impressive! It's too bad that Target treats them like a shameful secret.


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## MamaProfCrash (Dec 16, 2008)

My Target has a display model. You cannot do anything with it but you can get a feel for the weight and see what e-ink looks like.


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## David Derrico (Nov 18, 2009)

My local Target has the Kindles hidden in the back, behind the bathrooms, in a locked closet with a sign reading "Beware of the Leopard" on the door. The price is listed as $399; there's a picture of an old record player, a stone tablet, and a crystal radio, with the slogan: "Kinda like an iPad … in black & white." When I asked a salesman about it, they told me no one bought them, he didn't know why anyone would buy one, he didn't have the key to the closet, and he was pretty sure they didn't have any actual Kindles in there anyway. He said it was just a "publicity thing" and that I was "really not supposed to be back here." I asked him how I was supposed to buy one, and he recommended that I head over to Barnes & Noble.

OK, that didn't really happen, but it was about the only thing I could think of worse that the actual Target stories you guys have been telling.


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## Tom Diego (Jun 30, 2010)

Prior to buying our Kindles, my wife and I went to our local Target to look at one.  The display was on an end cap in the electronics section and it wasn't hard to find.  It was devoted entirely to the Kindle, with Kindle covers on the shelves below.  However, upon picking up the Kindle I saw that the display indicated the battery was depleted and needed to be recharged.  The power cord was attached and disappeared behind the display.  I tried looking for where it might have been plugged in but couldn't see more than a few inches of the power cord.  I flagged down a clerk and pointed out that the power cord didn't appear to be plugged in and she said

"When they set up the display a power strip wasn't supplied with the display so they had no way to plug it in.  It ran a demo for a few days before the battery died and it's been that way ever since."

Great job, Target!  And what great initiative on the part of the employees charged with setting up the display!

In contrast, in every store where I've seen a Sony e-reader display, the models on display were working fine.  I can't believe that Amazon would sign an agreement with Target to sell the Kindle without having some kind of control over the display.


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## Neekeebee (Jan 10, 2009)

The first time I went to Target after they started selling the Kindle, I looked in books and electronics for it and couldn't find it.  The one employee in electronics was taking a while with customers (which was fine) so I left.  I asked the cashier if she had seen any Kindles yet, and she had no idea what it was.

The second time I searched again and then asked electronics where the Kindle display was.  The pointed me in the right direction and there was a display model flashing info on the screen.  This was after Amazon's price reduction, and I looked everywhere on the display for the price but couldn't find it.  Again I asked the cashier if they'd sold a lot of Kindles and again he had no idea what it was.  (Then again, I guess people would've paid for them at electronics....)

N


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## Meemo (Oct 27, 2008)

TomDiego said:


> In contrast, in every store where I've seen a Sony e-reader display, the models on display were working fine. I can't believe that Amazon would sign an agreement with Target to sell the Kindle without having some kind of control over the display.


Wow you've seen better Sony displays than I have. In fact the last time I was at Target I looked at both the Kindle and Sony displays - the Kindle was working in demo mode, the Sony Touch was on one page, so you could see what the eInk screen looks like but nothing could be changed, and the Sony Pocket Reader wouldn't turn on at all. I've seen non-functioning Sony readers in other stores, either frozen up by people punching buttons or just blank screens.
I think it's clear that results vary from store to store for all readers - well, except for B&N & the Nook, and they have more of a vested interest in pushing the Nook since it's "their" reader.


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