Nook vs Kindle

Barnes & Noble (B&N) pulled DC Comic’s books off it’s shelves recently after the company sold exclusive digital rights of it’s comics to one of B&N’s largest competitors, Amazon.  Matt Stuart and Stacy Cowley from CNN quote Jamie Carey, chief merchant of Barnes & Noble in article, “Regardless of the publisher, we will not stock physical books in our stores if we are not offered the available digital format, to sell and promote the physical book in our store showrooms and not have the e-book available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime.”  First of all isn’t refusing to sell the comics in stores contradicting this alleged promise to “make available any book, anywhere, anytime?”

Furthermore, this was excellent strategy on Amazon’s part because it forced Barnes & Noble into a dilemma.  Should B&N continue receiving revenue from products that have exclusive deals with rivals or pull products resulting in loss of revenue and customers?  The first option would mean an increase in publisher’s deals with companies like Amazon because they see no repercussions in doing so.  The latter would prevent publishers from making exclusive deals with e-book companies.  Barnes & Noble chose the latter, which made a statement to companies such as DC Comics that if companies won’t play by B&N’s rules then B&N won’t hesitate to pull products.

I believe Barnes and Noble made the wrong decision.  Books are moving toward electronic medium and by not adjusting it’s business model accordingly, B&N will be forced to stop sales of popular books as more and more companies begin to make deals with e-book providers.   Proven here, it may not always be in a company’s best interest to exercise it’s buying power.