Quote:
Originally Posted by HarleyB
Exactly! I have never seen a Collins books store which appears to be predominately based in Victoria. There are only 7 stores in regional Queensland and none in Brisbane. NSW is not much better with only 8 in the state - but at least they have ONE store in Sydney. So for 2 of Australia's biggest cites with a combined population of over 5 million people (almost a quarter of the country's population) there is one store.
If Kobo wants to actually sell their product they need to have it available for people to buy.
To me it seems like the negotiations were done somewhere in Canada by a person who doesn't even know where Australia is - let alone what the retail scene is like.
If Woolies are not interested as they now have the Kindle Kobo really needs to start talking to Coles/Target/K Mart and JB Hifi.
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There isn't actually a Collins in Melbourne's CBD, either - their outlet is Hill of Content, which, even though it's part of Collins, has its own separate website. Collins used to have a larger presence in the city, but this was back in the days when, amongst other things, Borders and A&R were around.
As for who did the negotiations, that wouldn't surprise me all that much. From what I've heard of other companies branching out into new markets, they tend not to do enough research on what the retail scene is like. They were onto a good thing with Borders and A&R, but then seemingly did nothing all throughout REDgroup's fall.