ChangeWave: Amazon dominates, Fire owners’ likes and dislikes
I’ve mentioned ChangeWave before. It’s a company that surveys consumers, and they’ve done with users of tablets and EBRs (E-Book Readers) before.
They have a new survey out:
I recommend that you read it: there are a lot of interesting data points.
I don’t want to take too much away from them. I’m just going to highlight a few of the things that especially caught my eye.
- They asked people whether they expected to spend more or less money at a variety of online retailers (Amazon.com, Costco.com, eBay.com, BestBuy.com, Walmart.com, and Target.com) over the next 90 days. Amazon dominated that, but the biggest thing to me was that only 20% of the respondents said that they planned to spend no money at Amazon. Yes, four out of five of the people in the survey did plan to buy something at Amazon. The closest competitor was eBay…and it was only 35% who planned to shop there, as opposed to 80% for Amazon
- Kindle Fire owners are much more likely than non-owners to say they plan to spend more at Amazon. That’s significant: to me, it’s one of the key points of the Kindle Fire for Amazon
- iPad owners are much more likely to be very satisfied than Fire owners
- I was surprised that the third most popular answer to what people liked best about their Fires was the “ease of use”. I see a lot of questions from people about, say, removing things from the Carousel…I’m not sure that suggests ease of use to me
- It astounded me that the number one dislike was the lack of a physical volume button. I do change the volume fairly often, I’d say, but it doesn’t bother me to do it with a menu. Of all the things people can and do complain about on the Fire, I wouldn’t have thought this would be first. Now, I can see the advantage of a physical mute button, or a “mute spot” on the lock screen (so you could always get to it), but that seems like a different question to me
By the way, I do have a quick question for you Kindle Fire users. I’m just curious about this one. On this one, you can choose one answer or both…I’m just interested in the percentages. I’m going to keep the question very simple. Think about how you regularly use your Kindle Fire. Do you use it for work (I’d include home productivity in that…and if you use it for that, oh, at least ten percent of the time, I’d check it as yes)? Do you use it for fun?
Thanks to one of my readers, John Tobison, for linking to the ChangeWave survey in a comment. I did already have it in my writing queue (I leave tabs open in Google Chrome with things about which I might write), but I’m always grateful when readers take the time and make the effort to let me know about interesting things. 🙂
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
I Love My Kindle 
February 4, 2012 at 2:12 pm |
Hey, Bufo…do you have a Fire? Comments about removing an item from the carousel were before an upgrade done about a month ago; now it’s very easy. Ipad owners, I believe, are happier because they are almost religious devotees. I work for IT in a company that went for iPads big time over a year ago, so we all have company iPads. Everyone on the team who has purchased a personal tablet device has chosen a Kindle Fire, and we much prefer them because of ease of use including Amazon.com instead of iTunes as a store.
February 4, 2012 at 2:37 pm |
Thanks for writing, Mary!
I’m on my third Fire. 🙂 My first one had a scratch on the screen, and I foolishly left my second one alone briefly in a public place…it walked away. 🙂
I use mine every day.
I think people who buy Apple products do tend to really like them, and I think that’s for good reasons. i also think that people who pay more for quality tend to report being more satisfied.
It’s interesting that you are seeing that split. I doubt very many companies are buying the Fire as an enterprise implementation…and it’s not designed for that.
February 4, 2012 at 4:20 pm |
You must not, A. have kids who use your KF or B. don’t watch a lot of flash or movies on it. It is VERY frustrating to have to first get the menu to come up then get to settings to change the volume which after you finally do get to then your content stops until you are settled again. I watch a lot of netflix on here and trust me it is a pain to keep up with the volume with background noises constantly changing. And I HATE having to come and change it for my kids after I have locked them into Zoodles kids app. They can do anything they need but they don’t have access to an easy volume.
February 4, 2012 at 5:05 pm |
Thanks for writing, Lisa!
You are correct on A, and not correct on B. 🙂 My “kid” is an adult and not in the household. I do watch video quite a bit on it (both Prime and Netflix…and sometimes, something from Archive.org or YouTube), and I listen to audiobooks, music, and I’ve done text-to-speech on it a bit (although that doesn’t compare in any way to text-to-speech on the other Kindles). I tend to listen with the volume up all the way on everything…but that might be my conga drummer’s loss of high end hearing (presumed).
We do want to turn the sound all the way off in public places playing something like Dabble. That’s why it would be nice to have a physical mute button. Otherwise, though, I don’t mind two taps (Settings Gear, then volume at the top or bottom) to adjust it.
I was surprised that it was a bigger complaint than “No 3G” and “No Camera”, both of which were on the list…
February 4, 2012 at 4:40 pm |
I was surprised lack of a memory card slot was not even mentioned as a dislike. For me that was the deal breaker.
February 4, 2012 at 7:45 pm |
Thanks for writing, finrind!
Yes, that’s an interesting point. A number of people have mentioned that. It hasn’t been an issue for me…yet, anyway. 🙂 You can use a wireless drive (like the Kingston wi-drive) to achieve the same thing, although it isn’t as small.
February 4, 2012 at 10:04 pm |
Actually there is a volume control for the Kindle Fire. Why do people not know that? It’s so easy to find and use. From the Home screen just tap the little wheel icon and a drop-down will appear and there is the volume control right there. EASY as Pie!!
February 5, 2012 at 12:58 am |
Thanks for writing, phylis49!
Yep. What people want is what I called a “physical” volume button…they want one that is actually on the boyd of the Kindle, like the power button. I’m fine with a virtual button, but not everybody is. I think one issue may be wanting to adjust the volume without having to wake the Kindle.