As this article states, the gloves are off. Here is a snippet:
The retailers began a price war Thursday, when Wal-Mart offered online customers a chance to pre-order 10 popular books for $10 each, about 60% lower than the list price. Amazon.com then matched that price, but Wal-Mart took it a step further on Friday, listing the 10 popular books for $9 each.
This is only available on Walmart.com and is for pre-orders only. 
I’m a loyal Amazon customer. I buy the majority of my hardcovers at Amazon. Now I’m wondering how they’re going to compete with Walmart. Not only do you have $9 hardcovers, but you also have free shipping. Walmart has always been iffy when it comes to book selections in their stores. I’ve only checked two books, but Amazon has now slashed their prices.
Here is a link to the Top 10 Pre-Orders. Among others, you can find Kindred in Death by J.D. Robb ($9 at Amazon.com, but you have to spend $25 for free shipping and Ice by Linda Howard. You’ll also notice that this price cut makes the print copy cheaper than the Kindle Edition.
Will you by from WalMart.com?
I get all my hardcover book from BOTM Club for $9.99 and free shipping. The shipment takes about a week, so it’s not hot off the press, but they’ve always been the cheapest.
Probably not.
Here in France we only have amazon. But they ship books for free. Even if I order only 1 book (about 5 euros) they ship it for free as often as i want.
Hardback are still very expenssive, about 20 euros (discounts are forbidden on books in France… that’s a law to protect small bookshops which wouldn’t be able to compete with big companies otherwise 🙁 )
Money is very important but until I’m wearing nothing except a smile, I will spend it with a company that understands my needs, not just for now but for future as well. I don’t mind paying a little more to keep them functional and on-going.
I have nothing against Walmart but I am not their targeted customer. I live in NYC, Amazon is who I need to keep in business. I appreciate that they lower their price to match, though.
I really loathe Walmart, so I’m glad I never buy hardcovers and don’t have to be tempted. :-\ — willaful
I live in Canada, and unfortunately the price war hasn’t carried over here. Too bad. But then, it wouldn’t have changed a thing anyway because a) our Wal-Mart site doesn’t allow us to pre-order books from thir site – it don’t even have a book section, actually and b) from what I understand the special price applies only to a limited selection of books, which I doubt include any I’m interested in and I wouldn’t buy a book I’m not interested in even if it’s only 10 (or 9) dollars.
I do wish that some of the promos on the various US book sites carried over here though. Buy 2 get 1 free and that sort of thing.
And thanks Emmanuelle for finally providing an answer to something that’s puzzled me for a long time!!! I always felt book prices in Europe were outrageous and I wondered how it was that a site like Amazon hadn’t brought them down a bit, instead of keeping the trend. The reason does make a lot of sense. However, I’m glad to be in Quebec where discounts are allowed both on English and French books. 🙂
Very interesting. I’m definitely going to get the new Stephen King book (at Amazon). You can’t beat $9 for a hardcover!
I don’t buy from Walmart. I’m sure many of the retailers I do support have questionable practices too, but I can’t get past the locking-in-in-the-employees thing.
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/06/0603_walmart/18.htm