Kindle Arrives at GameStop Just in Time

December 10, 2012 by Paul Ausick

GameStop shelves
Source: courtesy GameStop Corp.
Just as the holiday retail shopping season gets down to its last two weeks, GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) said today that it would begin selling two models of the Kindle Fire tablet from Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). GameStop will sell the 7-inch Kindle Fire and the Kindle Fire HD for $159 and $199, the same price as Amazon sells the devices for.

In addition, GameStop customers will receive a $25 Amazon gift card with their purchase. And customers who trade in their older Kindle Fires will get a $100 in-store credit.

It’s a little hard to see how GameStop will make any money on this offer because Amazon is believed to be selling the devices at razor-thin margins at its own stores. Adding a $25 gift card to the deal is almost sure to mean that GameStop is doing no better than breaking even on any Kindle Fire it sells.

From Amazon’s point of view, it’s probably no big deal either way. The company lost both Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) as resellers for its Kindle products earlier this year. GameStop volumes are not going to make up for that, but then, any incremental revenue is good.

GameStop’s shares are flat in afternoon trading at $27.29 in a 52-week range of $15.32 to $28.00.

Paul Ausick

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