• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SEENIT

TV, Film, Broadband, Pay-TV, Games, Computing and Tech | News, Comment & Reviews

  • NEWS
  • FEATURES
  • ADVERTISE
  • Twitter

Does agency always lead to much higher prices? iBooks suggests not…

May 31, 2011 - Martin Hoscik@seenituk

Random House UK recently joined Apple's iBooks. Photo: Apple
Earlier this month Random House UK reached an agreement to sell books via Apple’s iBooks store.

As with all other publishers selling via Apple, Random House sets the price for each title under an arrangement known as the agency pricing model which sees the retailer take a fixed percentage of the sale price.

Agency pricing, currently under investigation by the OFT, has been hugely controversial with some book buyers and the widespread claim among consumers is that books priced this way are often much more expensive then they would be if retailers were allowed to set their own prices.

But it seems that’s not always the case.

Browsing iBooks for titles I’d previously bought from Kobo but might someday re-buy to have in iBooks alongside all my newer purchases I noticed something odd about the price of Frederick Forsyth’s masterpiece The Day Of The Jackal.

Kobo currently offer the book at £6.59, listed as a 21% (£1.75) saving off a list price of £8.34. Amazon.co.uk’s Kindle store offers the book at £4.82, a 31% (£2.17) saving off the “Digital List price” of £6.99.

Yet the ‘price set by the publisher’ iBooks version is selling for £5.49 – £1.10 less than Kobo and just 67p more than the Kindle edition.

John Grisham’s The Runaway Jury (an even better book than it is film) is selling for £5.49 in iBooks versus £6.59 in Kobo (a 21% or £1.75 saving on their list price of £8.34) and £4.94 from Amazon.co.uk which gives a Digital List Price of £7.99.

I picked a few more titles at random (no pun intended) with the following results:

Forsyth’s Phantom Of Manhattan is £3.99 in iBooks, the Kindle version sells for £3.59 (list £5.99) and £4.91 on Kobo (list £6.25).

James Patterson’s 9th Judgement is £4.99 in iBooks, £3.40 for Kindle (£7.99 list) and £3.41 on Kobo (£8.34 list). But while iBooks is dearer for this title, the author’s Tick Tock is £9.99 on iBooks, £8.99 on Kindle and £8.99 on Kobo.

This isn’t an exhaustive check and there are plenty of cases where the non-agency retailers are considerably cheaper than iBooks, but it may be worth noting those instances where they’re not and reflecting on whether claims that agency always leads to significantly higher prices are actually justified.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Related

Tagged With: Apple, ebooks

Blu-ray and Gaming Top Buys

Batman: Soul Of The Dragon comes to DVD and Blu-ray next month

Classic Doctor Who story The Web of Fear is coming to Blu-ray

Francis Ford Coppola’s re-edit of The Godfather: Part III gets official trailer

RECENT

Sky and Studiocanal announce new movie deal

Jeremy Brett’s definitive Sherlock Holmes arrives on BritBox this week

Dawn French and Richard Curtis reunite for Vicar of Dibley documentary

EE brings 5G to 13 new towns and cities

Popular

Sky bags first run rights to Entertainment One catalogue

Freesat adds BBC Sounds to app line-up

Coming To America sequel to get global release on Amazon Prime Video

Hitman developers announce new James Bond game

Featured

Ofcom calls for greater social and geographic diversity in TV and radio

BT Sport app now available on Now TV devices

StarzPlay is now available from Rakuten TV

Britbox – What does the new UK-centric streaming service offer?

Popular Topics

  • Amazon Prime Video
  • BritBox
  • Freeview Play
  • Set Top Box Reviews

ADVERTISE ON SEENIT

We’re pleased to offer a number of advertising opportunities to high quality brands including sponsored content, competitions and advertising placements.

Please contact us for details.

MORE FROM US

Copyright © 2021 · All Rights Reserved · Contact Us · Copyright · Terms of Use · Privacy Policy
MayorWatch Publications Limited · 20-22 Wenlock Road · London N1 7GU · Company Number 6291816