¶ … Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com are two of the most popular American-based online book vendors. While Amazon.com is by far more entrenched in the international book selling market, within North America, these two huge online retailers offer competitive prices and similar services. A direct comparison of ten best sellers can illustrate how these two major vendors: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon; I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe; The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth; The Broker by John Grisham; Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides; Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata; French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano; Blink by Malcolm Gladwell; and God's Politics by Jim Wallace. These books are not based on the New York Times best seller list. Therefore, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com list different titles as being best sellers. The reason for different books selling faster than others might be due to pricing or because of the demographics of each vendor's clientele. The following is a detailed breakdown of the ten titles mentioned above, indicating pricing trends between the two book vendors: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a paperback fiction novel also available in hardcover...

The trade paperback edition sells for $9.80 on Amazon.com, a sale price that is significantly marked down from the list price of $14. A customer shopping on Amazon.com will save about $4.20, a 30% discount on the list price. The book is exactly the same price on BarnesandNoble.com.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon has a list price is $12 on both websites. However, on Amazon.com, shoppers can purchase the book at the sale price of $9, whereas BarnesandNoble.com sells the paperback edition of the novel for $10.80.

Tom Wolfe's novel I Am Charlotte Simmons is brand new and therefore only available in hardcover. The list price is $28.95 on both sites. Amazon.com sells the book at a remarkable 60% discount, for a sale price of $11.58. BarnesandNoble's sale price is $20.26, only 30% off the publisher's list price. In this case, the price difference between the two vendors is enough so that customers would be more willing to buy the product from Amazon.com.

Phillip Roth's novel The Plot Against America is also only available in hardcover right now. The list price is $26. As with previously mentioned fiction titles, Amazon.com offers greater savings over its competitor: the book is $17.68…