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You Could Get Paid for Reading This: Interested in Trading Up for a New Kindle Touch or Kindle Fire Tablet? Pull Your Clunker In to Amazon’s Super Lot!

This is fascinating. But even better, you could get paid for reading this post. Sort of.

 

Back in May, we ran an article entitled “Amazon Prepares the Way for the Kindle Tablet by Accepting iPad Trade-ins.” At the time Amazon was offering $245 for my first-generation 32GB, wifi-only iPad, and we called it “an absolutely brilliant step that only it could have taken as a way of preparing the path for the Kindle tablet:”

It extended its relatively unknown Buyback program, previously associated mostly with textbooks, movies, and video games, to include a wide range of electronics products including the iPad, the iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy, the Motorola Xoom, and all kinds of other devices that might — if you could trade them in for a decent sum — prepare the way for you to buy a Kindle tablet, both in terms of the need to replace functionality and the financial wherewithal to make the purchase. Click here to visit Amazon’s Trade-in site.

Now Amazon has taken the logical but equally brilliant next step by extending the buyback deal to just about every ebook reader and tablet that we have ever owned or dreamed of owning — except, at this early writing, the Nook — beginning with that first Kindle 1 for which you may, like me, have paid $399. As you can see at the right, Amazon’s algorithms initially set a “like new” trade-in price of $29 along with $26.25 (Good) or $18.50 (Acceptable), but those didn’t last long. It may be a good indication of how popular the trade-in program is the Kindle 1 trade-in offer has already, as of this morning, fallen to less than half the original levels at $12/$10.75/$7.

These prices are set not by humans but by what Amazon’s algorithms make of the marketplace, and by Amazon’s formula for balancing the need to pay low enough that it can profit reasonably on a refurbished resale and high enough to make you want to unload the first-generation Kindle and buy a new model. But make no mistake, it’s all about setting you up with one of the new models if at all possible, because those new models — and especially the Kindle Fire tablet — are the ideal content- and commerce-delivery system for just about everything that Amazon sells.

As any auto dealer can tell you, there is a tremendous amount of market power involved in having what is effectively a two-way market, and of course Amazon is far more knowledgeable about relative price elasticity and inventory control than most auto dealers and manufacturers have proven themselves to be. For everyone who has been feeling that very common feeling of buyer’s remorse over having purchased less advanced but higher priced models in the past, even the prospect of a nickels-to-dollars trade-in transaction has to sweeten the appeal of purchasing a new Kindle Fire or Kindle Touch.

Meanwhile, for those who love to watch the ebook reader market and compare the popularity of various devices, it will be fascinating to watch the rising and falling offer prices for over 140 devices (including dedicated ebook readers, tablets, and smart phones) that Amazon has tagged with a “kindle” keyword in its trade-in department.

And meanwhile — as if this is something new — Amazon apparently has it all:

  1. the most popular ebook readers ever;
  2. the best value proposition for any tablet;
  3. the best trade-in spot, unless you are an eBay seller, for a growing list of electronic devices including dedicated ebook readers, tablets, and smartphones; and
  4. what is almost certain to become a very popular off-price secondary marketplace for the same devices.

Naturally, thus far we’ve all focused primarily on #1 and #2 above. But we should not underestimate the importance of #3 and #4 in influencing the economics, the retail pricing, and perhaps even the share price of some major competitors, including eBay and Apple.

But more on that in another post.

Amazon Prepares the Way for the Kindle Tablet by Accepting iPad Trade-ins

We’ve been paying some attention lately to the increasing likelihood that Amazon will launch a “Kindle tablet” some time this year. We’ve felt since last fall that it is on the way, but the signals have gotten much stronger lately, as we reported in this post last week. To summarize where we tried to be a little coy last week, I think Amazon will announce in June or July that it will ship a Kindle tablet in July or August, and while there may be more expensive models, I expect there to be a viable base model priced under $300. The new Kindle tablet will be a perfectly good ebook reader for people who don’t prefer e-Ink. Equally important, it will be a great color touch tablet that will not only work almost as well as a laptop for many purposes and serve as an exquisite delivery system for Amazon’s fast-growing MP3 and Instant Video services for music, audiobooks, films, and television programs. It will, in many respects, be defined both by the ways in which it is like the iPad and also by all the ways in which it is the anti-iPad.

More to come on all of that, but today Amazon took an absolutely brilliant step that only it could have taken as a way of preparing the path for the Kindle tablet.

It extended its relatively unknown Buyback program, previously assoicated mostly with textbooks, movies, and video games, to include a wide range of electronics products including the iPad, the iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy, the Motorola Xoom, and all kinds of other devices that might — if you could trade them in for a decent sum — prepare the way for you to buy a Kindle tablet, both in terms of the need to replace functionality and the financial wherewithal to make the purchase. Click here to visit Amazon’s Trade-in site.

As many of our readers know, I was one of the gazillions of early adopters who forked over about $700 for an iPad last Spring. And I had a lot of company among the citizens of Kindle Nation, judging from the results of our Kindle Nation Citizen Surveys since then. I was certainly interested in what I could do with an iPad, and I also felt that it was important for me to have one in order to do my job. I’ll be trading my iPad in for $245, which means that my cost for using the iPad for 14 months and being an early adopter will have been about $350. But more important, that $245 make up the lion’s share of what I pay for the new Kindle Tablet, whenever it comes out.

Here’s the guts of the Amazon press release:

Amazon Trade-In Program Expands With Thousands of Electronics

Great Trade-In Values on Used Textbooks, Video Games, Movies and now Electronics Ship For Free, All in One Box

SEATTLE, May 18, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the Electronics Trade-In Store, offering customers a new way to conveniently trade in used electronics for Amazon.com Gift Cards. The Electronics Trade-In Store enhances Amazon’s existing Trade-In program, giving customers great value on everything from video games and DVDs to textbooks and now electronics, without visiting multiple stores. Starting today, customers can trade in electronics, including tablets, cell phones, MP3 players, cameras, GPS devices and more. With Amazon Trade-In, only one box is needed to ship multiple items and shipping is free. Simply visit http://www.amazon.com/tradein and start searching for items to trade in.

“Technology is constantly evolving and newer, better versions of consumer electronics are introduced all the time,” says Paul Ryder, vice president of Electronics for Amazon.com. “We want to give customers the opportunity to get great value from their used electronics. Hundreds of thousands of customers have already received millions of dollars in gift cards from the other products in our program. The Electronics category is a natural extension and we are delighted to offer our customers more trade-in options.”

Regardless of where electronics and other products may have been purchased, customers start by simply searching for items to trade in. If the product is listed as eligible for trade-in, then customers can click the Trade-In button to add items to their trade-in shipment. Amazon’s Trade-In program offers a variety of condition types including “Like New,” “Good” and “Acceptable,” giving customers an easy way to view multiple trade-in values. Once customers have added all the items they would like to trade in to their trade-in shipment, they can print a pre-paid shipping label and ship everything for free. After the product is received and inspected, an Amazon.com Gift Card will be deposited into the customer’s Amazon.com account, generally in less than 48 hours. There are no claim codes or waiting for a check in the mail. Amazon.com Gift Cards can be used on purchases towards millions of items on Amazon.com.

Amazon’s Trade-In program (http://www.amazon.com/tradein) offers great value on used products, and starting today, customers can now trade in used electronics.