Subscribe To A Newsapaper, Get An E-reader Free

Glyn Moody — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:37:41 PST

Well, this was bound to happen. Barnes & Noble is offering big discounts on its Nook e-readers to people taking out subscriptions to digital editions of magazines and newspapers:

The Nook edition of People is $9.99 a month; with a one-year subscription, customers will receive a Nook Tablet, a color device with a 7-inch display, for $199, a discount from its regular price of $249. Customers who buy a one-year subscription for the Nook edition of The New York Times for $19.99 a month, which includes access to NYTimes.com, will receive a black-and-white Nook Simple Touch free or a Nook Color for $99.

It's that last deal that's really striking: a free Nook when you subscribe for a year. The benefit is clear: once you've got your Nook, you're quite likely to buy a few other titles to read on it, and that's where the profit starts rolling in for Barnes & Noble.

It's not hard to see Amazon following suit. After all, it is allegedly selling the Kindle Fire for less than it costs to make, so it has effectively adopted the same business strategy already.

The low-end models for both Barnes & Noble and Amazon are ideal for bundling free with newspapers and magazines, especially as hardware prices continue to drop. E-readers might even be offered free with e-books, provided people commit to buying a minimum number per year - traditional book clubs would be wise to try this approach in conjunction with Amazon or Barnes & Noble before those two do it on their own. Similarly, it can only be a matter of time before the newspaper and magazine publishers start offering combined hardware and software bundles as standard in an attempt to entice people to sign up for digital subs.

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Dear Comcast: The Idea When You Bundle Is That People Are Supposed To Get A Discount

Mike Masnick — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:10:46 PDT

When companies offer "bundles" of the various services they offer, part of the point is that if you're buying multiple packages together, you get some sort of "discount." It doesn't make much sense to go in the other direction, but apparently Comcast thinks it does. Reader Lucas points out that the company is currently offering the following "Digital Double Play" bundle, which consists of both the "Comcast High Speed Internet, with Powerboost" and the "Comcast Digital Starter Package" for the temporarily discounted bundle price of $69.99/month for six months (after which, the price jumps to $109.90/month). Ok. But let's look up the components separately. It appears that the basic high speed internet with Powerboost is available separately as a promotion at $19.99/month for six months, after which it becomes $42.95/month. And then there's the Comcast Digital Starter Package. That appears to be offered as a promotion for $29.99/month for six months (after which it jumps to $59.95): So... at a first pass, it looks like you could order each package separately and pay $49.99/month for six months and $102.90... or you can buy the "bundle" and pay $69.99/month for six months and then $109.90/month afterwards. What a non-bargain! Of course, if you start to look closer, it's a little bit different. The digital TV package, even though it's described as the "Digital Starter Package" also includes the on-demand library. So if we dig deeper into Comcast's options, we find that the equivalent tier isn't actually the "Digital Starter Package" but the "Digital Preferred" package. Kind of odd that you'd sell the digital "preferred" package while claiming it's the starter package -- but that appears to be what Comcast is doing. So, with this package, the six month promotion is $44.99/month and then it jumps to $76.90/month: So, now, the "unbundled" combined offering is actually $64.99... Still $5/month cheaper than the "bundle" -- and without the bundle at least you get the satisfaction of knowing you have the "preferred" package, rather than the "starter" package (oh yeah, and of paying $5 less than the suckers who bought the bundle.). But then, finally, after six months, your price will jump to $119.85 -- or $10 more expensive than the bundle. So perhaps there is some method to the madness, but Comcast sure doesn't make that very clear.

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Techdirt. Stories filed under "discounts"

Subscribe To A Newsapaper, Get An E-reader Free

Dear Comcast: The Idea When You Bundle Is That People Are Supposed To Get A Discount