Amazon Kindle selling on eBay for over $1,000

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

December 17, 2007, 12:57 PM

Those wishing to receive an Amazon Kindle book reader before Christmas are resorting to auction site eBay, and paying a 200 percent premium in the process.

Despite mediocre reviews from well-known technology pundits Walt Mossberg and David Pogue, consumers are eager to get their hands on the new device. The $399 Kindle has sold out from Amazon, and the company has stopped giving estimated ship dates.

"Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is sold out. Because orders are prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis, please ORDER NOW to reserve your place in line. Your Kindle will not arrive by December 24th," Amazon's site reads.

Electronic book readers are not new, but Amazon thinks it has found the secret to success: a library of ebooks that can be downloaded over the Kindle's built in EV-DO network. Amazon currently offers 90,000 books, including 101 of 112 current bestsellers. Electronic books cost $9.99 from the company.

Although it's been available for over a year, Sony's Reader has seen a far more muted response. Its ebooks are more expensive, however, and Sony doesn't have the same breadth of content available from Amazon. To compensate, Sony included support for a large number of file types, but consumers largely haven't noticed.

To Amazon's credit, the biggest complaint about the Kindle is its design, which some have likened to a device from the 1990s. The Wall Street Journal's Mossberg said Amazon "has a lot to learn about designing electronic devices."

But while the iPod's sexiness may have helped cement its place in the national consciousness, an electronic book reader is only competing against real books, and future generations of the Kindle will surely improve its design. Amazon has opted to initially focus on functionality, which appears to have been a good choice based on demand.

eBay auctions of the Kindle range between $600 to over $1,000. One sale even reached $1,500 before bidding ended, nearly four times the $399 retail price.

Aside from limited availability, buyers from outside the United States are likely driving the Kindle's price up, as they are not able to buy it directly from Amazon. However, prices will surely fall once more Kindle owners try to make a quick buck selling their device, just as many did with the Apple iPhone over the summer.