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The iPad: how will Apple’s latest gadget affect sales from your store?
by Nick Shanagher on 28 January, 2010
Wow. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, says that his new company’s new iPad device is “extraordinary”, and if you take time to look at his launch presentation on the web you may agree. Will it kill the magazine and newspaper industry? Perhaps not – but it will change it!
For example, if you are on a journey, devices like this make it easy to watch a movie rather than flick through a magazine. Armed with an iPad are you going to read a book or watch YouTube? I reckon the latter.
News and views in magazines and papers are key footfall driver for many local shops. The iPad is yet another competitor for shoppers’ time. The biggest issue for local retailers is if its launch takes away the attention of publishers on making sure they do a good job for shoppers who like buying news and views from your store.
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Comments (7)
Will you buy one Nick?
It certainly looks good and yes these devices are gaining traction. But how do the cost models work for ownership and subscriptions. Clearly Amazon’s Kindle has created a market for mobile newspaper/magazine/book readers and Apple always produce nice looking gadgets.
How will it impact our sector, hum. It is probably time to take a serious look at the newsagent business model in the UK because in a decade or so this type of device or a successor will change the delivery model for newspapers and magazines.
Steve
On the plus side, if there is a partial migration and the newspaper and magazines category becomes less attractive for the supermarkets, there could be opportunities for independent retailers to gain a larger, more profitable share of a smaller market.
I have now taken a look at Steve Job’s excited presentation of the IPad and it really does look great.
As with all these mobile devices it comes down to a question of battery life, can I take it on a long journey and still be reading the book at the other end?
I know that I can with a paper based novel or magazine.
Steve
I am not impressed by the new iPad as it does not do anything new that can’t already be done on a mobile smart phone. Battery life is the achilles’ heel of many of these new devices and you never get the length the manufactures claim, very much like the broadband speeds advertised and achieved.I don’t think it’s Wi Fi enabled and no SD card slot.Come on Mr.Apple Job’s half done.
There was a small chart in Friday’s FT, based on data from Credit Suisse, that showed that fewer than five million e-readers were sold in the US in 2009 and e-readers accounted for less than 5% of the lieterary market.
However the line rises steeply to 30m unit sales a year and 30% plus share of the literary market in 2014. That is about 100m e-readers sold in seven years…
While this is just a projection, the scary thing is that a lot of energy will be spent on trying to win profitable revenue streams in this new market. Will publishers still put enough energy into the print on paper market? Will they listen to independent retailers, who meet their loyal customers on a daily basis?
Today I read a report that publisher Macmillan has forced Amazon to list its new best seller e-books at $14.99 rather than the $9.99 Amazon was charging based on the publishers agreement to provide content for Apple’s iPad.
With Apple, the publisher sets the price and keeps 70% of the revenue, which they call an agency model. Amazon previously bought e-books at half the list price and sold them at a price point it wanted.
So the iPad is already changing things!
Wi-Fi in March. 3G in April. A touch screen keyboard for responding to email or making notes. And of course, it will get thinner, lighter and use less and less power as it is developed. The launch presentation on the web is brilliant.
My old fingers find a blackberry too fiddly; but this I could cope with. Yes Steve, I will buy one but I’ll wait a few months for the bugs to be ironed out.