Tolino Shine Continues to Thrive: Gaining Market Share and Challenging Amazon
The Tolino Shine is undoubtedly the most successful German eBook reader to date. Gone are the days when the major book retail chains unsuccessfully tried to compete with Amazon. Especially during the current holiday season, the sales of this joint product seem to be going extremely well. The success is even highlighted once more through a press release.
According to various major news portals, the Tolino Shine has been sold around 500,000 times. However, this announcement isn’t entirely new, as this figure was already hinted at during the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Negative PR as the Key?
More interesting are the figures regarding the eBook market share distribution. Reportedly, Amazon’s share decreased from 48 percent in the second quarter of 2013 to 43 percent in the third quarter. The Tolino partners have now captured 37 percent. This market shift can certainly be attributed to the Tolino Shine, although the pre-existing eBook offerings of the book chains already contributed a significant share to the market beforehand.
The current market situation has also played into the hands of the Tolino alliance. Since the temporary worker scandal, Amazon has been struggling with declining popularity, and the negative press coverage has continued throughout the year.
The Tolino partners are capitalizing on this situation; it’s no coincidence that the press release talks about the “Us against Amazon” scenario. Their advertising campaigns also take this direction and focus on services like in-store consultation (which Amazon lacks). Many of the marketing messages aim to convey a positive image of the Tolino brand by highlighting Amazon in a negative light. Given Amazon’s currently tarnished image, the timing couldn’t be better.
Affordable Price, Good Device
However, this shouldn’t overshadow the fact that the Tolino Shine is indeed a serious competitor, even without the advertising campaigns. Technically, it cannot match the Kindle Paperwhite at this point, but most potential buyers are likely unaware of the differences between the devices, meaning the advantage primarily becomes evident to tech-savvy consumers.
The bookstore chains have also paid dearly for the success of the Tolino Shine—literally. The eBook reader is sold at a price of 99 euros, significantly lower than the prices of competing products, although it’s unclear whether this was planned from the start. Club Bertelsmann initially listed the Tolino Shine at a regular price of 119 euros, leading us to speculate that the eReader would eventually be sold at this price. However, this hasn’t happened. Fortunately—because a higher price, closer to the Kindle Paperwhite, would certainly have impeded sales success.
It’s probably not an overstatement to say that the Tolino Shine might have surpassed the million mark during the ongoing holiday season. We will likely gain confirmation in the upcoming weeks with another press release further emphasizing the success of this newcomer.
