Quote:
Originally Posted by CommonReader
Isn't Waterstones that very book chain that refused to sell any ebooks to anyone living outside the UK and Ireland all of a sudden? Despite being well known in continental Europe and having a market there? Instead of churning out their own hardware perhaps they should get the basics right first.
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As others have said, not Waterstones choice but publishers enforcement of georestrictions...
As for others queries about Smiths, most serious readers do not regard them as a book shop any more but more as a gift shop (which is why Waterstones don't want to follow that route) rather than a book specialist.
Originally Posted by CommonReader
Strangely enough kobobooks, Amazon and bookdepository are able to sell many of these books to Germany. I do have some doubts as to the legality of such restrictions within the EU anyway. However, Waterstones were just too lazy to check which books they were allowed to sell and rather enforced a blanket ban.
Strangely enough, Amazon has an outlet called Amazon.de... oh yes, it's a GERMAN Amazon outlet... and Amazon DO enforce geo-restrictions as you can easily find when trying to buy some titles from them and get the answer that they're not available in "your country" but never mind call the local shop lazy but since you probably buy from Amazon then you're just another nail in the coffin causing cost cutting by staff reduction... you can't have it both ways... if you don't patronise an outlet or just use it for title browsing then don't expect them to keep the high staff levels to meet your requirements. Don't worry though, one day soon everyone'll get the ideal situation that we all really want and Amazon will have a total lock on the book market, then see what happens to your bargain prices...
