bn.com versus amazon; amazon wins; fatality

For Christmas, I received a $25 gift certificate from BN.com. I used $23 of it to buy Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal. This left me with two dollars of credit with Barnes and Noble.

It is a testament to Amazon’s grip on my business that the remaining two dollars are effectively worthless to me. Given that I have free shipping from Amazon, and that Amazon’s prices are nearly universally less than Barnes and Noble’s prices, a $2 gift certificate to the latter is not useful. I can’t find anything I want that will cost me less from BN.com, even after my gift card, than from Amazon.

Written on January 21, 2006