Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Kobo has better hardware and firmware than Amazon. Plus, Kobo blows Amazon away in terms of device support. Kobo still supports third generation hardware with current firmware. Amazon does not. The Kindle Touch (4th gen hardware) is lacking a lot of features (for example).
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So why doesn't Rakuten bother to promote those facts?
Kobo doesn't even have one tiny link on the Rakuten USA home page.
As I said,they rely on people like you doing their job for them.
Their core business model worldwide relies on local partners, usually pbook retailers, promoting their hardware and ebook store, in return for a (smallish?) slice of ebook sales revenue. (And, on occasion, taking in customers from failed ebookstores like Sony. Though it's hard to tell there if Sony paid Kobo or Kobo paid Sony. The former is just as likely.)
Let's face it, Kobo's presence (outside its protectionist home) is strongest in markets where ebook adoption is weak (consisting primarly of passionate hobbyists) and it is weakest in the more mature markets where ebooks have exploded into the mainstream. Their mindshare among regular readers is minimal and they do nothing to reach to them.
Their approach does little to expand ebook adoption as it relies on retailers with a vested interest in keeping ebooks a marginal techie/hobbyist market. Best example is their Indie bookstore effort in the US that fizzled, as reported at Nate's site a couple years back. Indie stores that carried Kobo weren't listed, stores were listed that didn't, and in most cases the stores would grudgingly dig up a dusty hidden Kobo only if you asked.
Whatever their reasons, their approach to the US (and UK?) markets contrasts with other hardware players that actually *tried* to work their way into the US market before it was closed off by the Nook-initiated move to near-cost hardware pricing. Sony failed but they really tried. They even tried TV ads. Pocketbook had local distributors and pretty good US-based customer service. Even the likes of Cool-er gave it a good try during the boom years of 2011-12.
If Kobo is small in the US it is because their active efforts have *always* been small. Small efforts, small results.