Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
Best to offer competitive prices across the board with coupons and promotions reserved for genuine bargains.
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I have to disagree with this idea, if Kobo lowers the headline price then other retailers will simply price match, and Kobo's competitive advantage is lost. By using promo coupons Kobo can sustain a lower actual price without others being able to automatically price match.
The main problem is that there are some publishers who don't allow their books to be discounted, and so in my opinion Kobo need to find other discounting schemes that those publishers can accept.
One way might be not to discount the book itself but to provide a rebate or reward points, so the buyer would pay full retail price for the book but still get an effective discount. OmniLit do this with their 50% rebate scheme. For some reason it seems some publishers are willing to accept this sort of scheme when they won't accept their book being sold at a discount price, even though the customer ends up with a discount anyway.
I would also like to see a loyalty scheme from Kobo, where every book I buy from them gives me points towards a new ereader. The advantage for Kobo is that it is a discount that can't be price-matched automatically, it should be acceptable to publishers who are opposed to discounting the book price, and it gives customers with other devices an incentive to switch to Kobo (and those with Kobo devices to remain with Kobo) when they come to buy their next device. If they don't use their points to switch to a Kobo device, then it has cost Kobo nothing, and if they do switch to or remain with Kobo then it can be counted as a successful promotion.