Barnes and Noble is making me grumpy

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sadnookI pre-ordered the Nook ebook reader within a day or so after they were officially announced on October 20th. For over a month now, the expected ship date on my order status page has been 11/30th. That’s today in case you haven’t checked the calendar 🙂 All day I’ve been keeping an eye on that order page to see if the status updated to show that it had shipped. It hadn’t. And just a few minutes ago I received an email from Barnes & Noble informing me that I was smart that I pre-ordered…

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They go on to say that they expect to have the Nook to me by December 9th and that they’ve upgraded me to overnight shipping. They also gave me a $10 gift certificate code.

All I have to say to that is grrrrrrrrrr….

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My order status page is still showing today as the expected shipping date <pout>.

Anyone else out there feeling just as grumpy as I am?

53 thoughts on “Barnes and Noble is making me grumpy”




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  2. I want this in the UK….. the Sonys are OK but the Kindle is just far too expensive and restrictive (i want to put my PDF Academic Journals on them). Think i’m gonna plump for the Sony touch reader you reviewed the other day

  3. I got the same thing today. I am really hoping that they still ship it today. But I have a feeling that is a $10 sorry that they sent out.

  4. Same here, I’ve been logging into my account all day to see if my Nook had shipped yet. Also been checking my credit card to see if I was charged. No on both. Then I received the same email you did. Disappointed.

  5. Yes many grumpy people over this, though I, and many others, feel this may have to do with the lawsuit from Spring design. We have more info about this here: http://bit.ly/6jzhvs if you are interested. Mine doesn’t ship till January anyway, but I so hope everyone else gets their soon!

    Rachel

  6. I know!! I checked the order status about 15 times during the course of the day, fully expecting that my order status would soon change to “Shipped.” I am royally pissed that they waited until today to tell us that we should be getting our Nooks on Dec 9, and it seems like they should have been nice enough to inform us this earlier. It’s like waiting until 4:30 on Christmas Day to tell your kids that Santa was expecting to deliver presents in a little over a week. Plus, I went a little crazy last week buying ebooks, so that I’d have stuff to put on my Nook (and I really want to read these books ON my Nook, not my computer, so the wait is compounding the agony).

  7. Got the same message….called customer service and the girl said that as far as she knew….they were shipping early orders out starting today….but who knows……If this delay is for real….then it really pisses me off that they don’t start out with a real apology….”we know you were expecting your Nook to ship out today…we are sorry, but this is not going to happen”….etc. Why can’t they be straight about the delay if there is one?

  8. I ordered mine Oct. 28th. I was emailed that it is not shipping till Dec 14th, although stores will be recieving them on the 7th. Canceled my order after talking to Customer Service. I was very excited, but, now very unhappy with how they have handled this.

  9. Brent ! Puleeze don’t waste your money on a Kindle.
    Get a Sony or a B&N or hold out until they all settle on a uniform ebook format (maybe never)
    Even though I use my netbook, my hope is for the B&N to rule. .

  10. Don’t waste your money on a Kindle? Come on…let’s have a more eloquent discussion than this. That’s as smart as me saying only idiots buy netbooks.

    One of the advantages that the Kindle has (and yet to be seen for the Nook, and clearly an advantage over Sony) is their customer service. It’s absolutely amazing and first in class for any retailer.

    I hope the Nook and the new Sony Digital Reader are big successes, along with the Kindle. The more competition the better.

  11. Why is it considered a waste of money to buy a device that A) has a lower initial cost, B) has cheaper book prices, C) has a proven track record of performance and D) is backed by a company who hasn’t once before entered and abruptly pulled out of the e-book market?

    1hen2Ducks I think your extreme prejudice may be showing….

  12. I too ordered very shortly after the Nook announcement in October. I too received the same email as grumpy. I am no less anxious to have the Nook because I intend to use it over the holidays when I will be overseas. That said, when I ordered it I expected BN would be inundated and there would be rollout delays . . . that’s so routine, it is to be expected. Patience dear grumpy.

  13. aurghh…kinda disappointed that they are not shipping on the expected date, which is today for me, was hoping to get it this week since I pre-ordered it right when they came out. I guess I can wait a bit more since I’ve waited this long for an ereader:( still…wish B&N has Amazon’s customer service…

  14. Yes, very grumpy here. I don’t really care about a $10 gift certificate. They didn’t even have the common decency to apologize in the e-mail or even really acknowledge there was a delay.

  15. @Way

    W00t! If it does, they may have another sale. I cannot seem to find out if the Kindle allows highlightling of text like the sony does….that would be a killer feature for me….SO many journal articles to read, digest and regurgitate in assignments at the moment

  16. “I expected BN would be inundated and there would be rollout delays . . . that’s so routine, it is to be expected. Patience dear grumpy” … twwr
    I concur. This was a huge rollout and delays probably should have been expected since they did run out on the online sales. Think of it this way though. At least they were good enough to give you at least one free book with the $10 gift certificate. I am still waiting for the Que on January 7th so that I can read my journal articles in PDF at full size.

  17. @Shkermaker

    Firmware release 2.3 for the Kindle2 does indeed include native PDF support, however, it does not yet allow for highlight and notation of the PDFs — BUT, I don’t believe the Nook allows for highlight and notation of the PDFs either. Apparently Sony is the only one at present that does.

  18. I ordered my Nook on October 20th and received the same December 9th email as above. Depending on what information is finally released as to the reason behind the delay, my Nook may be getting sold/sent back and kindle will find one more convert. I’ve always been a Barnes and Noble shopper and have purchased easily over 1000 books from them. After this lack of apology and true explanation they might have lost all future business.

  19. Sorry stupid question here but why is everyone so hyped up about having an Ebook reader?

    Maybe I missed some articles around the way but we have had the ebook reading functionality for at least 6 or 7 years. I remember reading books on my windows pda back in 03 you know when we had to walk up hill both ways in a snow storm to get an ebook and that was after chopping wood for the fire 😀

  20. aaahhh, yeah guess I like the whole have everything in one gadget. now if something comes out that can download the whole book into the brain directly without me having to spend 20 hours reading now we are talking 😀

  21. @jtip10
    Cheers for that – didnt know. Think i’m going to have to do some more research before I decide. The Sony is still the runaway leader at the moment

  22. Meh… e-readers are now like MP3 players. People say the IPod is amazing, and yet it has so many things missing that I need. Others go for the Zune, etc. For me, the Kindle has a browser/Wikipedia… which is indispensible. For you, maybe that’s a waste of time.

    I’d almost pay 200 bucks just for Wikipedia-on-the-go. 🙂

    But I’m just -really- sick of the “why do you want an e-reader” group… *sigh* If I wanted a laptop, I’d buy a laptop. I want an e-reader.

    Definitely do the comparisons though and read the fine print. Kindles are different this week than they were last week. Half the things you hear about the nook aren’t true either, or are only partially true. Be careful… read the blogs.

    Best of luck to you all…

  23. Jonathan, when did you order your nook – that has shipped ! you lucky duck. My pre-order was done 24 Oct and it is still not shipped. Just wondering.

  24. The Court denied Spring Design’s motion for a preliminary injunction against B/N. So there is no legal impediment to B/N shipping the Nook.

  25. Ha, ha- early adopters! You guys are great- you spend all that money and deal with all those headaches so us latecomers (read as: jealous but poor wannabe early adopters) can just sail through the process. Thank you!

    Actually, I am happy enough with the book capabilities of my Blackberry and netbook that eReaders are not even on my wishlist. Been using a Palm as an eReader since the early days of eReader.com and memoware.com so the small screen, etc. is not that big a deal for me, but the convenience of portable books is fantastic!

  26. I ordered my Oct 20 when the ‘accidentally’ opened the front door, someone pinged me, I got it ordered before they slammed the door closed again…

  27. “Upgraded to overnight?” What a joke. By the way, I recently purchased the Sony Reader Pocket Edition instead of the nook for a couple of reasons:
    * The Sony is here now
    * I consider the color LCD on the nook a gimmick which hurts battery life
    * The Sony is more portable, it fits in my pants and coat pockets while the nook does not.
    * Important: The price of books (at least the ones I care about) on the Sony store is cheaper than those from BN.
    * I have a $150 Border’s Book Store gift certificate–This is where they sell the Sony Reader.

    What the nook has that is better than the Sony (plenty, but here are a couple):
    * 6-in screen vs the Sony’s 5-in
    * Buy books without computer. For the Sony, I have to buy from computer, then copy or sync to the reader

    1. @georgi55 I better get my Nook by next Wednesday… I’m not sure what I’ll do if I don’t, but they just better follow through on their promises… dang it! 🙂

  28. @Jonathan Congrats! I received my tracking number this morning. I should have it tomorrow. The tracking number has yet to show any activity though.

    So, tell us, was the wait worth it?

  29. A little late to this party but….. I ordered the Nook on 11/10 with an expected ship date of today (12/11). I just received the ‘shipping soon’ email but I guess I don’t qualify for the $10. All they are telling me is I should have it by 12/21. Very disappointing. They have obviously known the Nook would not ship on time. Why set a date that you know you won’t be able to make?

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