About three months ago toward the end of May, Amazon started selling a new Kindle for Kids Bundle for $99.
There’s nothing “new” about it really, but the idea is new as far as E Ink Kindles are concerned. The device itself is the exact same as the $79 Kindle that was released last October, but it doesn’t have advertisements and it comes with a colorful cover and a 2-year warranty instead of the regular 1 year warranty.
The Kids Kindle is actually a better value than the $79 version, especially if you don’t like ads and want the benefit of an extended warranty that covers accidental breakages, but none of that appears to be helping drive sales of the Kids Kindle.
Compared to other Kindle and Fire devices, the Kids Kindle Bundle isn’t getting much love at all.
Amazon never reveals sales figures for Amazon-branded devices, but you can get an idea of how well certain items are selling based on the number of reviews and their placement on Amazon’s best seller lists. Neither of those two options shows good results for the Kids Kindle.
First, a number of Kindles and Fire tablets regularly litter the top 100 best sellers list for electronics at Amazon. The Kindle Paperwhite is usually in the top five; right now it’s number 3. Currently at number 13 sits the aforementioned $79 Kindle.
But you won’t find the Kids Kindle Bundle anywhere on that Top 100 list or anywhere on the Hot New Releases list.
A low number of reviews is another indication that the Kids Kindle isn’t selling well. After 3 months on the market, it only has 37 total reviews. That’s an average of less than 13 reviews per month.
A good comparison for that is the new Kindle Paperwhite 3. It was released at the beginning of July, a full month after the Kids Kindle Bundle became available, and it already has over 4,000 reviews.
The $79 Kindle has been out for about 10 months and it has over 11,200 reviews, so that’s over a thousand per month.
Either way you look at it the Kids Kindle doesn’t look like its getting very much attention from customers. The interesting thing is that it’s a better value than the $79 version whether or not it’s for a kid or not, but that doesn’t seem to be helping it any.
cover & 2 years of warranty without cost? Not sure why anyone buying the KT wouldn’t want this instead.
Positioning this for children was perhaps not the brightest idea coming out of Amazon. They’ve done so many dumb things with the Kindle line, though, that it’s difficult to describe it as the dumbest.
Maybe the real problem is that the ad=free KT is so near the sponsored PW in price that folks, initially, either spend up to get the PW or down to get the sponsored KT.
Maybe kids can’t bother writing reviews for Amazon… Just kidding 🙂
I see a lot of reviewers are having trouble with the “Free Extended Warranty”…
I have been thinking of buying one myself except I have three Kindles already.
I didn’t even know there was a Kindle for Kids. This is the first I am hearing about it. Maybe Amazon needs to promote it more!
I’ve been a prime member for 5 years and visit Amazon everyday, several times a day and THIS IS THE FIRST I’VE HEARD OF A KID’S BUNDLE!! Seriously, it’s just not promoted well (if at all). They need to step it up for the Holidays because there are still kid’s out there who prefer to read a good book than watch the movie…
All Amazon has to do is re-market this. Instead of 2 year warranty make it 1 and instead offer ad-free kids version kindle and watch it fly off the shelves. F@#! those ads!!!
Amazon has only the speciality of selling goods.When ‘dady Jeff’ comes with not-so-attractive amazon-made hardwares,even his own kids probably dislike them:tablet,phone,kid tablet,to name a few.The only successful product was fire TV.Amazon cannot and won’t be able to compete with other big brothers!Amazon,do please believe in that!
Oh,I forgot to mention that kindle was also successful.Of course I didn’t buy it and I won’t,because I personally think it’s defective product.Man,I am purchasing for a versatile hardware that has almost every possible options without limitation.Well,I should admit that it was/still is successful marketing product.