For at least a week now Barnes and Noble has stopped selling new Nook ereaders from their website.
They still sell Samsung tablets under the Nook name, of course, but when you click on the page for the Nook Glowlight Plus it just directs to refurbished Nooks instead of new ones.
You can select a new Nook from the drop-down list but the page just says that it is temporarily out of stock online.
At this point there’s only the option to buy a refurbished Nook Glowlight Plus, not a new one.
That seems a bit suspicious considering the Nook isn’t very popular anymore so the odds of it selling out are really low.
There’s also the fact that new ones can be purchased right now on Amazon. So B&N doesn’t have any in stock but a 3rd party seller on Amazon has plenty to sell, and for $10 less than B&N’s price no less?
Something is up.
The Glowlight Plus is now two years old, and B&N usually replaces Nook ereaders after two years.
Is it possible that Barnes and Noble could release a new Nook soon?
At this point it seems just as likely for them to discontinue Nook ereaders altogether so it’s hard to tell.
Awhile back Techcrunch posted an article proclaiming the Nook was dead and was going to be phased out. But then the article was deleted with no indication why, so that just adds to the mystery.
It appears the Nook is at a crossroads. No one really knows what B&N is going to do, and it seems like they don’t know either. Perhaps the Nook Glowlight Plus is just temporarily out of stock like the website says. Or maybe a new version is about to get released soon. Or maybe B&N is just going to focus on selling ebooks on tablets and apps moving forward after they sell off the last remaining Nook ereaders. Either way it will be interesting to see how things play out.
My take: The Nook is a dead device walking.
When this happened with the Oasis, my theory was that Amazon was pulling the Oasis line as well so don’t listen to me BUT Amazon hadn’t lost 80% of its stock price in the last 2 years, nor had it degraded its on-line bookstore.
B&N has a hemorrhaging business structure that can’t find a buyer. Exiting the e-reader business is perhaps one way that they’re choosing to preserve capital and hold on, for just a bit longer.
They just need to join Kobo on e-book market and close this case, though loved their Nook Simple Touch… Basically I will not be surprised if the e-book business of B&N will be digested by Kobo.
The Nook Simple Touch was the first e-reader I purchased. I was very pleased with it. The nearby B&N store was quite helpful with any questions I had.
I purchased Glowlight Plus several years ago. I returned it after a week because of the lack of even a semi-thick font. I wasn’t asking for a boldface font- just the same Helvetica font the Simple Touch had. That seemed to me to be the decision of some engineering savant who wanted as thin as possible, without considering what customers wanted. I doubt B&N did much customer testing on the Glowlight Plus.
I am sad that B&N no longer merits my custom- but not sad enough to purchase anything more from them.
I read a report that they are releasing the Glowlight 3, which is basically a rebranded Kobo
that’d be pretty rockin. Nook3=kobo aura one?
love to see this report,
My Glowlight Plus crapped out on me and I went to B&N today to buy a tablet. The digital sales associate whispered to me that the new version of Glowlight was arriving tomorrow and I should wait and look at it before buying a Samsung tablet.
I’m looking for a Kobo Aura 3rd edition. The NST was a classic.
Nook Glowlight 3:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nook-glow-light-3-barnes-noble/1127329365?ean=9780594777137
At a glance, looks nice. But I like larger screens, and I don’t buy nookbooks anymore.
Interesting… I knew something was up. It looks more like the older Nook Touch and they brought the page buttons back and they added adjustable frontlight color, but they ditched waterproofing.