New Nook pre-orders pushed back again, all stores to have demo units

Barnes & Noble looks to be having a bit of difficulty with releasing its first gadget. There certainly has been no dearth of pre-orders, people seem to really want to get their hands on the Nook. The trouble seems to be Barnes & Noble itself, not communicating well with customers, and constantly changing its plans.

Now, hopefully for the last time, we have the official word on the status of the Nook in B&N stores. According to Barnes & Noble, rather than having Nooks available at high-traffic stores with limited quantities to sell, every store will now have demo units starting Monday December 7. No store will have any Nooks to sell, however. Pre-ordering is still the best and only way to get yourself or somebody else a Nook. If ordering today, the shipment date has been pushed to January 15, 2010. Still way outside the holidays, but it is only about a five to six week wait.

The reason for the lack of units to be sold in stores seems to be to ship Nooks to those who pre-ordered early, and probably so everyone outside of those “high-traffic” stores will get a chance to see the device. Those early pre-orders should be receiving their Nooks by the middle of next week as stated in the emails that some, possibly most received this week. As noted earlier in the week, my email has still not come, and the Barnes & Noble Unbound blog has had several comments from others who have received no email, and still have an “expected ship date” of November 30. Presumably Barnes & Noble will be shipping our Nooks along with everyone else, and we can put all this drama behind us all when the first shipments are sent out and received.

Read [Barnes & Noble Unbound]