Amazon Kindle Sold Out: No Estimated Date of Availability
To our recollection, this actually hasn't happened in quite some time. To be exact, in 2008, when it was the original Kindle. And, even then, Amazon managed to make sure they told customers when the Kindle would be coming back around, or shipping to their doorsteps.
Context & Ripple Effects
Stockouts are a recurring feature of the Kindle's history rather than an accident: the device sold out within hours of its 2007 launch in just 5.5 hours, resellers pushed prices to $1,500 on eBay during that shortage on eBay, and the larger Kindle DX went dark before Christmas 2009 went out of stock. What distinguishes this July 2010 sellout is that Amazon has posted no estimated ship date at all — even in 2008, when the original Kindle last ran dry, customers were told when to expect delivery.
First-order effects
- Buyers who want a Kindle right now have no ordering timeline, and the 2008-2009 precedent suggests secondary-market sellers will capture the pent-up demand while Amazon's own storefront sits empty.
- The outage lands at a moment Amazon is actively stoking Kindle momentum — the same day it announced Stieg Larsson as the first author into the Kindle Million Club and rolled out Facebook Connect-based recommendations, it cannot ship its own reader.
Second-order effects
- Competing devices — Barnes & Noble's Nook and Apple's iPad, which some analysts argued in April actually strengthens Amazon's position by expanding the e-book market — get a window to pitch frustrated Kindle shoppers with in-stock alternatives.
- Amazon's practice of selling new and bestselling Kindle editions at a loss only pays off through attached hardware sales, so every week the device is unavailable converts its subsidized-pricing strategy from customer acquisition into pure margin giveaway.
Third-order effects
- If sellouts keep punctuating each Kindle generation, scarcity itself becomes part of the product cycle: demand signals arrive through empty shelves, and Amazon's razor-and-blades economics make restocking speed a direct lever on e-book revenue, not just hardware sales.
- A pattern of supply-constrained launches would push e-reader competition toward fulfillment and manufacturing capacity as the real battleground, ahead of features like the color screen Bezos dismissed in May as 'a long way out'.
The trend: E-reader demand keeps outrunning Amazon's supply at each product milestone, turning Kindle stockouts into a recurring barometer of how fast digital reading is going mainstream.