[TechniSol]

I wonder that Rakuten, owning Kobo, would much prefer we buy our Kobo readers online.

I recently made an in-warranty exchange through Kobo and found it to be relatively painless beyond the requirement of sending them a bunch of images of the unit and having to wait what seemed like an extra 3 or 4 days while my replacement seemed to sit in the same Canadian sorting facility.

For the most part it was painless, the online chat staffers were helpful, and they shipped my replacement and sent tracking info as I shipped out my unit so that they "passed in shipping".

I think about all they could do to improve is waive the picture taking for claims not involving outward physical damage and possibly send USA replacements out from a US source to minimize delay, but that is a very minor criticism.

As far as having a presence I wonder if perhaps targeted advertising, maybe finding one large retail(think W) partner that will sell readers at a nominal discount and for which Kobo will likely only make profit from book sales, and further third party deals like the one that had Kobo Reader software as part of the apps present on the $99 Nextbook android tablet I bought last summer would be the way to go.

If nothing else, Kobo has hedged their bets. They have a book selling income, probably the big end of things, Kobo e-ink readers, Kobo android readers, and various android and IOS apps. I think Rakuten, as their owners, need to provide a greater presence for them on their site. There should be a Kobo Store linkage on their site that offers readers and books as Rakuten offers everything else and they should cross promote. Rakuten has a reward points program, that should migrate and be usable for Kobo books and devices to keep the money in the family, so to speak.