Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzar
I agree with most people that part of the Kobo's dominance in Canada is due to the atrocious policies of Amazon towards Canada. Although Canada is a neighbor of the US, you would think we could as well be on Mars as far as Amazon is concerned when it comes to Kindle and ebooks. Unacceptable delays in getting Kindles on the Canadian market, lots of ebooks not available for your Kindle when you're in Canada, etc. Kobo has more agreements in place with editors that allow them to offer a larger selection of ebooks.
Amazon is too US-centric and that may be their ultimate weakness.
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I went to several seminars at the most recent ExpoCycle trade show in Toronto. One presenter there said Amazon had tried and failed to crack the Canadian nut.
Amazon has encouraged "showrooming" in the U.S. and elsewhere, the abysmal practice of consumers looking at and/or trying out items in store, then going on to Amazon (often in the store with their smartphone, with tools Amazon provides) to see if they can buy it more cheaply. It's a practice with questionable ethics, when you using up the staff time and other resources of the store for your benefit, then buy elsewhere.
Canadians, however, typically do the opposite. We tend to go online to research our purchases, and once we've decided what we're going to get we tend to go into a local store to buy it. That doesn't fit with Amazon's business model, and I suspect plays into the amount of effort they put into Canada. Of course, things like this can be chicken and egg...