Quote:
Originally Posted by shunter
No, I cannot buy your arguments. The numbers do not add up; the evidence shows that Kobo is running scared and they may be taking a cautious approach due to the end of agency pricing. Kobo over the last four years has undergone phenomenal growth. The number of Kobo registered users as of June 2014 is up (+38.8% YoY) to 20.9 millions of persons (compared to 2010 at 3.5). And Kobo’s global content revenue: +32.9% YoY in Q2. The number of 75% and less coupons used over the last few years is really trivial compared to Kobo's growth. I cannot see how hundreds of 75% off coupons will effect their bottom line when their growth is in the millions of users. The numbers don't add up; millions of transactions vs 100's with coupons.
I hope this months contest is a bad experiment, and we get a better one next month  .
Sources: http://global.rakuten.com/corp/inves...ments/results/
http://business.financialpost.com/20..._lsa=699d-dd36
Best,
Shunter |
It doesn't matter. If Kobo sees that people are 'traveling' to other countries to get their books cheaper, they will put a stop to that at some point, even if they are still making a profit, because if they don't, they are going to get into problems with the publishers.
Likewise, if they see that thousands of people are abusing the contests (in conjunction with traveling) to get books nearly for free (I admit, I did this too, completing my Forgotten Realms collection ASAP), they will try to stop that as well.
That their gains are bigger than the losses is not a reason to keep the losses going.
Maybe, just maybe, they ran those contents in the past the way they did just to generate publicity and to attract people. Nearly giving away a few thousand books a month would be a lot cheaper than advertising.