Quote:
Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer
Not all things are meant to sell large numbers; one can do just as well with smaller numbers and a high profit margin. I come from the world of print books, and although all of mine are published in regular bookstore hardcovers and eventually in mass-market paperbacks, limited-edition signed collectors' hardcovers, aimed at an audience of a 500 or a 1,000 can make everyone a lot of money. Could they sell twice as many at half the price? No doubt. Would they make the same total profit? That's not necessarily true at all, given that the unit DOES have a development and manufacturing cost.
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Whilst I appreciate your viewpoint, it is yet again ridiculous that Australians, and no doubt New Zealanders, will be paying over the top for the device compared to say Canada, where the CAD is relatively approx the same as the AUD. And the Forma sale price for Canada, according to the kobo CA website is: $299.99.
(how outrageous that we suffer such a huge impost and are asked to pay aud429. 95!!!)
Kobo is selling two things: the ereader and it's ebookstore, so if it doesn't get the numbers up in its ereader sales then it's likely that also means less kobo ebook sales.
Not all readers who use ebooks are as tech savvy as those of us at mobileread, who get by rather well using calibre to convert ebooks purchased from Amazon, for example. And conversely, those with non kobo ereaders who buy from the kobo estore. There are no doubt many users of ereaders who only buy their ebooks from the store relative to their device.
I do consider that kobo needs to sell a goodly volume of ereaders to keep up sales from its estore, and if that means selling the ereaders to Australians at a price more in line with other countries, then that's what they ought to do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯