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Originally Posted by Nil Einne
In addition, I would point out that even if you don't care about ads, Amazon US will not ship the version with ads to other countries. I believe it may be offered in some other countries either via their local Amazon stores or Amazon partners, and some parallel importers also sell the version with ads, but then the cost comparison gets more complicated. Also while the OP taking in to comparison the $20 discount they received may be fair for their specific case, they should remember that as they said it's only for 'select users' so probably only a tiny proportion of people does such a comparison apply. I'm also a bit confused by the tax thing. Why were they taxed in the Kobo but not the PW? I can only presume this is something to do with the weird sales tax system for states in the US where the store doesn't have to charge tax unless they have a local partner/nexus in the state but no one can really decide what that means and some sellers seem to charge tax even though it's not clear they have to and states are continuous trying to find ways to force companies to charge the tax, and there is congressional action to try and force it but the whole thing seems a mess. Although my understanding is technically in most states people are supposed to be paying use tax if they weren't charged sales tax anyway, it's just that most don't do so (and in some cases they can use an estimated system which goes by income rather than how many items they actually buy without sales tax).
I also agree with others. There may be some legitimate complaints about the occasional screw up (e.g. invoice not received), lack of updates and poor information coming out of Kobo. (Although I wonder how bad Kobo really is compared to other vendors, Google were likely dealing with a much larger number of orders for the Nexus 4 and perhaps had slightly better info but we had similar problems.) But getting back on topic, complaints about the time taken for orders at this stage seem a little unfair, even Amazon had backlogs and long order times for the PW just after it launched, presuming you lived in the US (or had a US address) so were allowed to buy it.
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It's not just the Aura ordering debacle, it's the complete lack of good customer service and overall incompetence in e-commerce for a company that has been around a few years now. In contrast, Amazon knows customer service is as important, if not more important, as the price and availability of the products they sell. In my experience, they have never quoted an estimated arrival date or ship date that was not accurate. In fact, it is many times earlier than quoted. One minute online or via phone cancels an order. Done. Tracking the status of one's order online is simple and quick. Other than books, Kobo customers have no evidence of any orders in their account whatsoever. Inexcusable for a company operating in e-commerce today. Kobo is just as lousy handling problems of incomplete or blank books which is why the last book I purchased from them was in 2010.
And any comparison from others posters between Canadian customers' frustration with Amazon/U.S. and what U.S. customers are now experiencing with the Aura mess can be attributed to Canadian commerce.