Barnes & Noble’s e-reader strategy is losing ground to rivals Amazon and Apple.

The country’s No. 1 book chain yesterday said sales of its Nook e-reader — including the hardware, contents and accessories — fell 10.5 percent in the three months ended April 28 to $164 million.

The company, attributed the drop to “higher than expected” returns of Nook Simple Touch e-readers.

Simple Touch e-readers, which compete with Amazon’s Kindle, were sent back, unsold by retailers, as the company tried to make way for its latest GlowLight e-readers.

Anlaysts and industry insiders yesterday predicted that there would be little love for the plain e-readers in a tablet world.

“Do we really need an iPad, Amazon Kindle Fire and then the e-book?” said one industry expert. “Do we need three platforms?”

On the disappointing news, shares in B&N fell 4 percent to close at $14.63.

The retailer did report some success with digital goods distributed to Nook devices, registering a 120 percent increase in content sales in the year ended April 28.