E-reader price jockeying for the holiday season got a...

E-reader price jockeying for the holiday season got a head start Sunday with Barnes & Noble’s announcement it had cut the price of the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight by $20, bringing it to $119 to match the suggested retail price of Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite e-reader with ad support. Analysts saw the move as an attempt by Barnes & Noble to win over consumers on the merits of the GlowLight-equipped Nook that has been very well-received by reviewers since its launch last spring. In the news release announcing the price cut, Barnes & Noble noted that the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight comes ad-free and bundled with an AC adapter, compared with the Kindle Paperwhite, which comes with a USB charger and shows ads when the user isn’t reading. The Paperwhite without advertising is priced $139, according to Amazon.com. Barnes & Noble’s release also said the Simple Touch with GlowLight “is fully stocked at Barnes & Noble stores and leading retailers,” a claim Barnes & Noble couldn’t make in the early days following the GlowLight’s release, when the e-reader suffered product shortages during the entire fiscal first quarter that ended July 28 due to poor production yields (CED Aug 22 p3).