Is Kinko's going to be the next killer app
Posted by Ian Holsman
I've been thinking about all the posts about the long tail, and how amazon is going to own this market via the purchase of two startups which print books and DVD's on demand.
But then it struck me.
why do you need amazon at all in this equation.
Once the publishers 'open up' and allow distributors (not end users) to recieve a copy of their manuscript electronically it then becomes an issue of print quality, and distribution channels.
Imagine walking into your kinko's store.. they have the top 2,000 best seller books (which is a fraction of what a small bookstore would have) stocked and on the shelves so people can purchase them straight away with no hassle. combine this with a couple of computers to look at reviews, which could even be personalized if they want and you have the long-tail filter in place.
now you've chosen a book.. you wait 20-30 minutes for it to print (you could submit your order online if you wanted to avoid the wait) and badda bing.. you have a book of medium-high quality in your hands, amazon can't do this.
There is a kinko's in nearly every neighbourhood, they have the printing infrastructure in place. They can build a recommendation / personalization engine in the short-medium term (6-12 months MAX if that long), all they are missing is the relationships with the book publishers.
I think the publishers would love it, why do they want only one electronic provider in the game to control what price they can charge for doing this, and it alllows it's traditional book sellers (i'm guessing who still make up the lion's share of the publisher's sales) a chance to compete.
The question then becomes is it cheaper to build a printing infrastructure for a book store chain, or build the relationship with the book publishers for a printing chain? I wonder if we will see a merger between kinko's and a large book retailer/distributor soon..
you heard it here first ;-)