Quote:
Originally Posted by taming
Kobo has to make a determination regarding what country you are in for purchasing purposes. This will be true as long as here is an issue with the books that are available in a particular country--and that is a Publisher/contract issue. ...
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I do think we are seeing some transitional artifacts right now as they get ready to debut the Japanese site on the 19th.
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As Taming suggested in her post (quoted above), the issues that have been reported in this thread and those that I've experienced are a likely to be the result of the need by Rakuten/Kobo to adhere to the terms of their agreements with the publishers.
In the past, I've been involved in the provisioning of online services between Japan, EU and the US. I've also had some exposure to sales of goods as well as services in the EU and the UK. In all the cases, one of my goals was to ensure that the goods and services were available in all the territories where the company had a business presence whilst adhering to the contractual, legislative, regulatory and tax issues unique to each territory. This has meant, on occasions, segregating payment mechanisms and setting different pricings depending on the region from which customers made their purchase.
With regard to the matter at hand, for those titles available in two different regions, through different publishing agreements or through different country divisions of a same group, I can appreciate that the publishers want to minimise sales losses in a particular region. I can also understand the fact that in these cases, prices may differ greatly for the same title between the regions. Lamentable and possibly objectionable to some, but understandable and unfortunately, the norm for digital and non-digital products alike.
The symptoms that we are seeing at the moment however appear to indicate something different. The situation with
http://rakuten.kobobooks.com/ and
http://www.kobo.com/ is that customers are now being prevented from making purchases of titles in a particular language depending on the region that they connect from.
Customers in Japan are unable to purchase titles distributed outside of Japan. Those living outside of Japan are likewise unable to purchase titles distributed in Japan. Unlike the case between the UK and the US, cross-border sales of Japanese titles abroad, or English language titles in Japan are unlikely to result in loss of potential sales to a particular publisher or division within a publishing group.
Its possible that the publishers in Japan were weary of facilitating copyright infringements for their graphic novel type publications, especially in other Far Eastern and Asian markets. This is indeed a widespread problem but not something that can be prevented or even alleviated by imposing GeoIP based restrictions. As with other cases of prohibitions, the result is more likely to be quite the opposite of what was intended. Whether in China with its government-imposed barriers and pricing beyond the means or between the US and Canada in the last century, prohibition stimulates trade in contrabands.
I understand from the transcripts of press conferences by Rakuten CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani that Kobo Inc. in Canada is handling sales to the Japanese market in order to offer pricing for Japanese titles without the mark-up from Japanese sales tax (Consumption Tax). This is an enterprising use of the loopholes presented by cross-border sales in the current tax regulations in Japan to the benefit of the consumers. Admittedly, it would inevitably have some impact on publishers' sales through other channels.
It is hoped that the publishers, Rakuten and Kobo will recognise the fact that cross-border sales in and out of Japan can only benefit their overall sales. Recognition of one such advantage is already evident in Rakuten's decision to handle their JP sales through Canada. As with other international business entities, sales achieved in this manner may be attributed to divisions that normally handle export sales to that region. No doubt the customers will choose to purchase from the cheapest source. This is exactly what happens in bookshops in Tokyo where the same English titles from both the UK and the US are sold side-by-side.