Amazon.com’s Kindle Only Available For Scalpers (AMZM, EBAY, SNE)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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We were quite interested in Amazon.com’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) upcoming product release for the new e-book reader, the Kindle.  Interestingly enough it almost immediately sold out of its initial supply and gave its first website update with an estimated December 5 ‘availability date’ to buyers.  That was right around Thanksgiving.  But if you look at the site now, forget about this being a Christmas or Hanukkah gift for 2007.  See below:

Availability: Temporarily out of stock. Order now and we’ll deliver when available. We’ll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your credit card will not be charged until we ship the item. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Kindle Availability:  Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is temporarily sold out. Because we ship Kindles on a first-come, first-served basis, please ORDER NOW to reserve your place in line. Your Kindle will not arrive by December 25th. Note that Kindles cannot currently be sold or shipped to customers living outside of the U.S.

But there is at least one place you can buy the Kindle.  eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) has many Kindle units on auction, for quite a premium.  As of now and depending upon the seller’s rating at eBay, the bids are in excess of $600, $700, and even over $800….. not bad for the seller considering that this retails at Amazon.com for $399.00 for those who can be patient for yet a few more weeks.

Walt Mossberg at the WSJ only gave Kindle a so-so review.  You can always buy the ‘lower-features’ eBook reader from Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE/ADR) for $299.95… and you can buy it on Amazon.com.

Jon C. Ogg
December 4, 2007

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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